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 FORTUITOUS WRECK
I’ve mentioned the fact that the original 1960 Ford Fairlane 500 was given a disrespectful kick to the curb after six years of loyal service. I was graduating from college after cramming four years worth of higher education into five. I’d just left the third interview for my first job after college and accepted their offer…
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HOW DOES A CRATER VANISH?
How does a dashing 41-year-old man simply vanish? Fairly easily apparently. A wealthy and well-connected man by the name of Joseph Force Crater was serving as a New York Supreme Court judge when he simply vanished. His disappearance fueled rumors, investigations, speculation, and would captivate all of New York and eventually the nation. Crater and his…
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CROWNING ACHEIVEMENT, Part III
Bob’s grown kids all looked at each other. The thought that their father would ever have the need to employ an attorney struck them as odd. The fact that he would employ one as obviously as high powered as Franklin Danbury Jr. seemed like a complete waste of resources. “Just like the old guy…
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CROWNING ACHEIVEMENT, Part II
The last day he would spend on this mortal coil Bob Irion arose having no clue that would be the case. There’s an argument among those who congregate at the Grounds for Divorce if that is better than having at least a little warning. Some steadfastly believe that a little time to prepare and get your affairs…
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CROWNING ACHEIVEMENT, Part I
Bob Irion passed a while back. He’d had a good life. Raised a family. Did his best to be the man he thought he should be. Was born in Fort Stockton back in the thirties. Moved away as a young man. It was that move that impacted him more than anything else, folks would come to find out. But, like a lot…
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FROM THE BACK OF THE BERMUDA, 9/8/2024
Back in the nurturing bosom of Fort Stockton where it looks almost like Fall is attempting to break into town. Unlike Detroit, where Fall has no problem defining itself and making clear its arrival, Autumn has an identity crisis in Southwest Texas. It will tease us and make us think it’s arrived, and then disappear for…
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SHOCKING
Benard Marx and Rusty from the Rusty Hammer Hardware Store were over at the Grounds for Divorce the other morning. Benard found a listing on Bring a Trailer that apparently stirred some memories. That’s what old cars and trucks do, isn’t it? While trying not to intrude, I tried to jot down what was said as the two…
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SCARLET & BLACK
Reed Rolland was a man who’d acquired a taste for the finer things and an appetite for them that was rarely satisfied. No one, not even any of his accountants knew just how wealthy he was because none of them ever received all the information to complete that picture. His land holdings alone put him in the…
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CASH UP FRONT
Some folks have an addictive personality. That’s not a condemnation, just an observation. If those afflicted by those addictions can funnel them in the right direction, their talents can grow and their greatest dreams can be realized. If those addictions are left untamed, well, they can consume people. Johnny Cash, it could be argued, was one who…
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DOM PERIGNON TASTES ON A LONESTAR LONGNECK BUDGET
Jake Jacoby graduated from Jim Bowie High, Class of ‘68 and went on to college on a scholarship from the Fort Stockton VFW based on an essay he wrote titled “Freedom and the American Road”, a tribute to the relatively new Interstate Highway System and the men who gave their lives on foreign battlefields before…