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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A FATHER’S LOVE, Chapter 10
The final chapter in a series of ten stories. Duke De Kalb calmly put the Impala into REVERSE and pulled it around the corner and down the dark dead end road as the sun just began its ascent in the east. By the first vestiges morning light, it was tucked back into the enclosed trailer and…
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A FATHER’S LOVE, Chapter 9
This is Chapter 9 in a series of ten stories. Behind the wheel of the 1946 Chevrolet 3600 Dually, Duke De Kalb looked around the cabin of the old truck and marveled at how much it reminded him of the plane he’d been in when he was shot down. The oily metallic smell. The gauges that were…
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A FATHER’S LOVE, Chapter 8
This is Chapter 8 in a series of ten stories. Months went by. Large blue tarps covered the Impala and trailer in the barn, not that there was ever anyone in the barn other than Duke or Dusty, anyway. Just an added precaution. A month or so later a third vehicle was added to the collection. Duke drove…
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A FATHER’S LOVE, Chapter 7
This is Chapter 7 in a series of ten stories. Abigail was married again within a year. Someone she’d met in Dallas. Several years older. He’d been married before but never fully explained the reasons for his divorce, leaving Abigail with the belief she needn’t explain her own. Duke De Kalb didn’t care for Husband Number Two from…
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A FATHER’S LOVE, Chapter 6
This is Chapter 6 in a series of ten stories. Best friends Abigail De Kalb and Eileen Parker headed off to TCU together in the fall of 1958. At the end of their sophomore year at TCU Eileen Parker had been called home under unusual circumstances involving her father. Abigail went on to graduate, but not…
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A FATHER’S LOVE, Chapter 5
This is Chapter 5 in a series of ten stories. Duke De Kalb spent the fall of 1957 and spring of 1958 getting ready to send his one and only child off to college. It was going to be as painful for him as it was joyous for her. He didn’t allow himself to think about exactly…
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A FATHER’S LOVE, Chapter 4
This is Chapter 4 in a series of ten stories. Everyone expected Duke De Kalb to come to his senses and surrender his daughter to her maternal grandparents who’d taken care of her since birth. Everyone was wrong. He certainly didn’t deny them every opportunity to see their granddaughter, but he never considered even once that…
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A FATHER’S LOVE, Chapter 3
The third chapter in a series of ten stories. Laying in the field after jumping out of the plane had left Duke De Kalb a wounded man, burns all over his body, bones broken, and flesh torn away. Reading the contents of the official government envelope delivered to him by the young soldier on the Indian…
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A FATHER’S LOVE, Chapter 2
Chapter 2 in a series of ten stories. Flight Lieutenant Duke De Kalb was on patrol near Southhampton in mid-July when his Hawker Hurricane was suddenly fired upon by German fighter aircraft that had appeared in the sky out of nowhere. De Kalb was able to somehow remain focused, although most of his waking thoughts had…
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A FATHER’S LOVE, Chapter 1
The first chapter of a ten chapter series. Duke De Kalb and his girlfriend had no intentions of falling in love. It was a damn foolhardy thing to do in 1941. The world was sitting on a powder keg. But, as fate would have it, Doris was sitting on one of her own and Duke’s fuse was the…