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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HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS, Chapter 4: We Three Kings
This is the fourth chapter of a holiday series that will run for seven days and end on Christmas. The next morning, the smell of the breakfast being cooked filled every floor of the house, coaxing the occupants of each room out of the warmth of the old quilts they were under. All but Stan. Everyone else…
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HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS, Chapter 3: Frosty the Snowman
This is the third chapter of a holiday series that will run for seven days and end on Christmas. When Stan arrived home from work the contrast of his black ’61 Oldsmobile Dynamic 88 Holiday Coupe against the backdrop of the fresh snow still laying on the lawn could have been a metaphor for Stan’s…
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HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS, Chapter 2: Oh Come All Ye Faithful
This is the second chapter of a holiday series that will run for seven days and end on Christmas. Dana had spent the better part of three days packing everything she thought the family would need for the trip to Michigan, attempting to cover all the bases. The result was a mountain of luggage, ice…
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HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS, Chapter 1: Deck the Halls
This is the first chapter of a holiday series that will run for seven days and end on Christmas. “Don’t go downstairs,” Kristen warned her brother while sitting at the top of the stairs. “Doug and Dana are at the kitchen table talking. Doug’s smoking so you know it’s serious. Dana has a glass of wine. She put it…
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DIAMOND T LEADS THE PARADE
Damned if there wasn’t one exactly like this in the Fort Stockton Christmas Parade last year. If memory serves, the City Fathers made the driver take off the copper-finished spike lug nuts halfway into the parade when the leash on Mrs. Somervell’s schnauzer got tangled up in ‘em and the poor thing was dragged all…
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STICKING TO IT
How does silver turn to gold? The same way failure turns to success, apparently. By sticking to it. Or rather, not sticking to it. It’s complicated. It’s probably best to go back to the beginning, or maybe before that. Back when Spencer Silver was in his early days working at The Facility. In an interview with the Stockton Telegram-Dispatch he told the reporter,…
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SPUR OF THE MOMENT
It’s safe to say no one would call me an impulsive guy. My kids laugh at my predictability. Buttercup says I’m the only one she knows who puts “Do something spontaneously today” on the calendar. They all laugh at this personality trait as though it’s some kind of weakness. I view it as a superpower. So I was as…
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FROM THE BACK OF THE BERMUDA, 12/15/2024
Good group at the Grounds for Divorce yesterday. I mean, it’s always a good group, but there were folks who wandered in that nobody had seen for a while and it’s always good to catch up. Branch Conifer rolled into town a couple weeks ago in his 1967 Ford Galaxie 500, dragging his Airstream behind him. He…
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Na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na….
Few know that Batman and Robin used to split their time between Gotham City and Fort Stockton. Each being a major metropolis infested with crime and ne’er-do-wells attempting to thwart the system, cause chaos, and promote evil. In addition to the physical toll fighting crime can take, there was the whole commuting back and forth element. It…
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ON THE BRINK
“Kelly O’Keefe never even had a pair of shoes until he was 15 years old, and now he’s driving a new Lincoln? What the hell’s up with that?” That was a common reaction around Fort Stockton when Kelly went down to Frontier Ford-Lincoln-Mercury, “Home of the Straight Shootin’ Deal” and plopped down $3,238 in cold hard…