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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HAPPY MOTORING, Chapter VI
This is the final chapter of a series of six stories. Tab Clifton sat next to his old high school buddy at the bar of the Lucky Lady Lounge. He’d heard Kelly Kerr had been back in town for a while, but it had taken a while for the two to get together. They’d gone through the…
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HAPPY MOTORING, Chapter V
This is the fifth chapter is a series of six stories. The events that took place in the month after hearing the words “I’m pregnant” whispered in the front seat of Mindy’s Nova became a blur that Kelly could barely recall. Kelly and Mindy got married in a small ceremony at the Tarrant County Courthouse…
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HAPPY MOTORING, Chapter IV
This is the fourth chapter in a six part series. June of 1963 seemed to fly by. Kelly was working a full 40 hours a week at the Happy Motoring ride at Six Flags, or occasionally filling in for crew members who’d called in sick or been sent home for violating one policy or another. He’d actually…
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HAPPY MOTORING, Chapter III
This is the third chapter of a six part series. “I don’t know which is a bigger shock, living in the middle of Dallas – Fort Worth or the alternate reality that Six Flags is. It’s like a made up world based on historical fact, but nothing is really as it seems.” Kelly was exhausted after his…
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HAPPY MOTORING, Chapter II
The second chapter of a six part series. Aunt Nellie and Uncle Todd were great. They were the couple Kelly wished his own parents could have been. He didn’t know how much his mother had shared with her sister, Kelly’s aunt. But he assumed they knew that his dad had disappeared. He thought they probably knew what had taken…
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HAPPY MOTORING, Chapter I
Chapter 1 of 6 in the story. When Arch Kerr returned to Fort Stockton from the service in early 1945 he was a different man than when he left. Perhaps it was like Heraclitus had said, “No man steps into the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he is not the same…
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FROM THE BACK OF THE BERMUDA, 1/5/2025
This is by no means a political blog. It’s a blog containing stories that are mostly fictional, centered on an automobile, truck, or RV of some sort. The point of each story is, more or less, to engage the reader. If a story provokes thought or discussion, that’s great. If it causes the reader to chuckle out loud, even better. If it stirs…
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A WING AND A PRAYER
Not long ago one of these was discovered out at Earl’s Salvage Yard & Formalwear. Sparky Spearman went down to the yard to find a new fuel tank for his Pinto and found the Pratt & Whitney J57 Jet Engine back behind a pile of Firestone tires taken off a bunch of Explorers back in…
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BLAZING NEW TRAILS
Mud Cat Marlin turned 30 and felt like he’d hit a brick wall. He’d been working out at the Proving Grounds since he graduated from Jim Bowie High School, “Home of the Fightin’ Knives”, and struck out on his own. He’d started out in the warehouse, working for minimum wage, learning the ropes under the tutelage…
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BAD CHOICES MAKE GOOD STORIES, Part III
Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds”. I know FDR led us through the Great Depression, and he’s featured on one side of the dime and all. But he may be wrong on this one. Men may, indeed, be prisoners of fate. Especially if they’re, well, actually prisoners. Joaquin…