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 STAR WAR IS BORN
By the time the house lights went down at Our Lady of Immeasurable Concern, three hundred respectable citizens of Fort Stockton were already packed into a parish auditorium rated for considerably fewer, two fire exits had been partially blocked by folding chairs, Delgado had sold enough Bantha Burgers to put the GFD Airstream food truck…
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A NIGHT TO REMEMBER
There are certain honors a writer secretly hopes to receive in his lifetime. The Pulitzer Prize is one. The National Book Award would be nice. A Presidential Medal of Freedom would probably look good hanging on the wall, although in Fort Stockton accepting one would immediately cause half the people at the Grounds for Divorce…
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MOVIE REVIEW: TOP GUN
By Jimmy Don Ventura Movie Critic, Stockton Telegram-DispatchGuest Reviewer — CMC Blog I’ve often said that there are two completely different movies playing on the screen every time you walk into a theater. The first one is the movie the director intended you to watch. The second one is the movie car people can’t help…
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SOMETIMES IT’S BETTER BY HAND
After completing the recent rejuvenation of the trunk of the Fairlane 500, I did something I hadn’t done in far too long. I backed the old Ford out of the garage, parked it squarely in the middle of the driveway, uncoiled the garden hose, and washed it by hand from top to bottom. The original…
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WELCOME ABOARD
Bruce Borger had spent twenty-three years learning that the secret to advancement in corporate accounting was preparation. Preparation could overcome almost anything. A weak quarterly report could be prepared for. An acquisition could be prepared for. An audit could be prepared for. A hostile board member could be prepared for. Even a meeting in which…
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THE GRAND INTRODUCTION
It all began with an inauspicious statement. “Ford Division confirmed today that it will introduce a new line of cars this spring,” said the press release issued February 6, 1964, by Lee Iacocca, vice president of Ford Motor Company. “The new line of cars will be called the Mustang. No further details on the new…
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THE MAN WHO KNEW EVERYBODY’S NAME
By the time most people in Fort Stockton began thinking of Walter Finch as part of the town itself, he had already spent forty-two years working in a room where nearly everything important arrived as sound. The Texas & Pacific depot stood east of downtown in a place where coal smoke, creosote, dust, and hot…
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UNDER THE RADAR
Fort Stockton, Texas Spring, 1971 There are two kinds of people who move to Fort Stockton. The first kind arrive because they intended to. They found work with the railroad, the schools, the oil companies, the county, or one of the ranches that stretched toward the horizon until they finally surrendered to New Mexico. They…
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ONE OF SEVENTY-SIX
The mistake arrived in Fort Stockton on the upper deck of a Ford transport truck during the first week of November 1959, black paint gleaming beneath a thin coat of road dust and a red-and-white interior bright enough to be seen from the courthouse steps. It was a 1960 Edsel Ranger convertible, one of the…
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GIVING THE FAIRLANE THE BOOT
Sometimes a confluence of events takes place that paves the road toward something you hadn’t planned. Something that ends up working out in the greater scheme of things, but wasn’t part of the original blueprint. Let’s back up. I recently made the decision to sign up for several classic car tours across Texas. The Fairlane…