Overheard in the local Farm and Ranch store in rural TX.
“My foot hurts something awful,” drawled Slim, not really so slim in his middle years sitting behind the counter at the farm store.
“Shoes don’t fit?” replied Jake, sympathetically, also sitting there, but appearing to be a visitor rather than a clerk.
“Yeah, its always my shoes. I think I went barefoot too long as a kid and got my feet flattened out too much for shoes to fit good, ever.”
“I didn’t wear shoes hardly never when I was a kid. My feet got so tough I could run around the rocks and cactus,” bragged Jake, a thin, smoked out, weatherbeaten westerner of 40 – 100 years old.
“Yah, I didn’t wear shoes till bout 12, only when Ma made me for church. Then I took them off soon’s I sat down,” replied Slim. “
Jake thought a little, “I figger the first time I wore reg’lar shoes fer mor’n a hour was at my weddin. You know Nancy wanted a fancy do’ins, and my boots warn’t gonna cut it, so I rented me a pair of fancy black shoes for the day. Figured at 3 bucks I better get my money out of them. Nancy liked them so much I added the extra $8 and bought em—savin’m for my funeral.”
“Well, maybe if I started go’in barefoot again, my foot would leave off pain’in me,” said Slim as he limped over to the cash register to check out my latest piece of metal strap to try to remove the Coleman check valve that continues to leak in Leakey.
By the way, Leakey is really Lake-ee in local pronunciation.
We took a loop tour from the park, east to Utopia, then back to Leakey on highway 377. 377 is one of those wildly twisting roads that switchbacks up and down big hills on narrow roads with the edges either rock wall with falling rocks or drop off a 1000 feet to valleys below. No traffic this time of year, as the park is a big summertime attraction with the Rio Frio (Cold River) for swimming, tubing, kayaking, etc. Now the park is almost empty, the concession stands closed, and the local cabins, motels, antique stores open on weekends if at all.
Margo takes a walk on the level road along the river in the park each day. Yesterday I tried a more interesting hike – a trail to the top of one of the big hills in the park. It was only about ½ mile up 1000 feet, but the trail was loose rocks and footing much of the way needed careful attention. At the top was an excellent view of the river valley and nearby hills.
I videoed some of the climb and put it on youtube at:
It reminded me of the Boy Scout camp in Philmont, New Mexico, that Scott and I and the scouts backpacked on nearly 30 years ago. Out there we climbed up mountain trails a few thousand feet and then back down in a valley to camp each day, something like 10 miles each day with 40 lb backpacks. Philmont was in the 10,000 to 14,000 foot altitudes and the air thin, so we huffed and puffed at times. Here, with no backpack, but carrying almost that much in extra personal weight, and with altitudes only a few 1000 feet or more above sea level, I still huffed and puffed on the way up. However, I was probably overly satisfied that I got to the top; didn’t have “the big one” and came down again intact.
I found two old books on local SW Texas history, written about 1900, describing TX from the 1830s through 1890s. I downloaded both to my book reader from Google’s scanned books. One is the story of a freight hauler who took wagon trains of freight from San Antonio into Mexico and back in the 1860s and 70s. The other is mostly of battles fought with Mexico and Indians as the Texans broke away from Mexico, had an independent country for 10 years and then became part of the US. The local Indians were continually at war with the settlers coming in and taking over their land and the Mexicans were upset that this state of Mexico was trying to be independent.
There are localities with settlers from Spain France, Germany, Poland, and just about any other country as Texans tried to get settlers to come. One nearby, was a rich Frenchman who paid to bring hundreds of French families to settle in West Texas. Each of these stories is interesting and often the folks were successful and the families continue to live here.
There is a culture here called Tex-Mex, sort of a blend of Mexican and American western culture. Cowboys, pickup trucks, hunting and all sorts of small businesses run by Mexican Americans. It seems to me the most ambitious folks are the newer immigrants who start these businesses and through hard work make a good life for their families. Many of the folks are bilingual and switch from accent-less English to Spanish as needed. I can understand just enough to get the idea of what they are talking about, but not the details.
The Mexican food is generally much less spicy than in Mexico, as watered down for the American preference for blandness. It suits us well.
You can see some of our trip videos at this youtube link
https://www.youtube.com/user/RiverRoadRambler
