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 FLIP OF A SWITCH
The end of the week was only minutes away. Students were beginning to squirm at their desks. Even the comforts of a brand new school costing a million dollars were not enough for the students to stay there one minute more than they had to. It was just a few minutes till the bell would ring and the…
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FROM THE BACK OF THE BERMUDA, 12/1/2024
Dorothy knew what she was talking about: there’s no place like home. Santa Fe is stunning anytime of year, but especially at the holidays. And while Buttercup and I were loath to leave it, the nurturing bosom of Fort Stockton is always a welcome sight. After unpacking and going through the stack of mail on the kitchen table,…
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BROKEN, NOT SHATTERED
It was a cold gray day in Paris in 1903 when Edouard Benedictus was working in his lab and dropped a flask. It wasn’t recorded exactly what caused him to drop the flask. It could have been that his fingers were cold and stiff, causing his grip to loosen and the flask to find its way to…
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WHO’S BEING NAIVE?
It’s autumn in New England, and probably has been for a while. The streets have piles of leaves clogging the curbs where tires and rain and wind have driven them till men with rakes or a city employee driving a street-sweeper cleans them away. There still remains a large number of them clinging on to…
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A CAPTAIN’S CLASSIC: OVER THE RIVER AND THROUGH THE WOODS
Aunt Mae got a gold Eldorado brand new from her second husband in ’69. She kept the car longer than she kept him, or husband #3 or #4, for that matter. Somewhere after husband Number One became history, but long before husband Number Two fell prey to Mae’s womanly wiles, she had a fling with…
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TURNING THINGS AROUND
Spittin’ image of the ’72 Plymouth Satellite Custom Sedan they used at Jim Bowie High School, “home of the Fightin’ Knives,” back in the day back in Fort Stockton. The graduating class was so small they used the Plymouth for Sex Education classes and Driver’s Ed. Coach Dunwoody taught both in an effort to reduce faculty expenses,…
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CADILLAC CONFESSIONS
A somewhat rugged cowboy glided into the lobby of the and over to the pool area of the Crockett Hotel, just off the river, in downtown San Antonio. He was startled to walk right into the gaze of an attractive young, buxom blonde seated in a chaise lounge near the water and staring in his…
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FROM THE BACK OF THE BERMUDA, 11/25/2024
I don’t think it was just my family that made a habit of documenting with Kodachrome everything they felt important. And few things were more important than the holidays we celebrated and the cars we drove. Often these went hand in hand. In fact, I mentioned this at the Grounds for Divorce the other day and found it was…
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THE ONE THAT FOLLOWED
THE FINAL IN A SERIES OF SEVEN STORIES. “You don’t know of a ‘Virginia Giddings’, by chance do you?” Channing certainly didn’t anticipate Vern being a bastion of knowledge, but had to start somewhere. The look he received when the motel clerk looked up from the TV confirmed his inability to help. “She used to teach English here…
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SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE
THE SIXTH IN A SERIES OF SEVEN STORIES. When Corey Channing pulled off the highway and drove into Fort Stockton he looked around and thought that Shamrock had gotten drunk, gone over to Amarillo and had his way with her and Amarillo had come to Southwest Texas to have the baby. To his view, the town…