Stories from the Slow Lane
The Lowdown on 25 of My Special Texas Friends
In the pages of my new book, Stories I’ve Been Told, you’ll meet 25 of my special Texas friends. Most of these personality profiles first appeared in my monthly column in our local paper, The Fayette County Record. Now they’ve morphed into volume one of a new book...
PROTECTING WHAT’S HIS: A Tomcat’s Tribulations
Jumper ‘Jaws’ Thomas is my name and ruling the roost is my game. I’m a rescue cat with a bone to pick. Some weeks ago, when the new dog around these parts wrote in this space, readers heaped favorable comments on my black and white archrival. If your words had been...
The Day Schulenburg, Texas, Welcomed a Flying Bull
Only 26 years after the Wright Brothers made their first flight, Schulenburg, Texas, welcomed Carnation Badger the Flying Bull. The dairy yearling reached the Central Texas town after a 1,232-mile journey from Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, on April 3, 1929. That audacious...
Peter Macklin’s Backroads School Bus Saga
Peter Macklin, a recent arrival to Western Canada back in September 1960, and I share fond memories of our first day of school. Peter was beginning his job as a full-time bus driver and I was finally old enough to start grade one. Although I couldn’t wait to climb...
FOUND: A Rescue Dog’s Forever Home
I’ve found my forever home so I’m one lucky dog. Bow “Tip” Thomas is my name and the pursuit of happiness is my game. I’m a rescue. That’s a polite way of saying that somebody who professed to like me (or tolerated me for a year or so) one day threw me out like a...
Lessons Learned at a Texas Country School
The lessons that Florence Hertel Farek learned at a two-room country school in Freyburg, Texas, still make her smile. In the 1930s, the Schulenburg, Texas, resident, who turns 95 tomorrow, lived on a farm in the rural South Central Texas community. Most of the kids,...
David Koether is One Happy Knapper
David Koether shapes small pieces of solid rock to create arrowheads which makes him a knapper. After finding a couple of arrowheads on land that he and his wife, Gesine, own northeast of La Grange, Texas, he had the urge to search for others. However, most property...
Bob’s Vintage Farm Tractors Have Tales to Tell
If vintage farm tractors could talk, they’d tell great tales, according to Bob Taylor of Black Diamond, Alberta. He prizes every one of the 140 models he has collected and knows some of their stories. Let’s start at the beginning. (Full disclosure: Bob is my oldest...
Mysteries at the Arnim Museum
The E.A. Arnim Museum and Archives in Flatonia, Texas, has some unusual artifacts. Here are some of curator Judy Pate’s favorites and one that she needs your help to identify. How many of the 12 antiques pictured in this story do you recognize? The answers appear...
Other Stories I've Saved
