That’s me in the bright suit, front row, second from left. NATE pledge class, 1971, at the Armstrong Browning Library on the BU campus.

That lasted for one semester.

Accounting and management were just BORING. Then one day the Hankamer School of Business held a Career Day. One of the speakers was asked, “What’s the best major to hold to get a job?”

His reply was, “It doesn’t matter what you major in, just get a degree. Employers want to see that you started something and finished it.” (Again, this was in 1971, when jobs were plentiful and there was a lot of money around.)

That did it for me. I had always loved history, so I immediately changed my major and started taking subjects I actually enjoyed, such as Texas history, oral history and world history. Back then (70-74) Baylor was blessed with some EXCELLENT history professors, such as Dr. Ralph Lynn, Dr. Paul Armitstead, Dr. Thomas Charlton and Dr. Robert Reid. They made history come alive, not by telling the sanitized version of “history” we got in high school, but by telling the truth. They taught it warts and all.

Napoleon famously said, “What is history, but a fable agreed upon?”

And in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, the last scene contains that famous line, “When the legend meets the truth, print the legend.”

But these afore-mentioned Baylor professors went for the truth. And most importantly, they had the facts, or primary sources, to prove all that they taught. As they said, “Let’s just tell the truth and see where it leads us.”

Which leads me to the point of this online screed.
When I was a boy, my father used to take my brother and I to hunt for relics along an old irrigation ditch that ran across our ranch. There were the ruins of a little Mexican village there, where we found all kinds of relics, mostly items from the old fort at Fort Stockton.

What’s left of the adobe walls along the remains of an old irrigation ditch out near our place. If you look at the bottom of the pic you can see part of an old cast-iron stove.

The “berm” of an old irrigation ditch can be seen in the photo above, perpendicular to the adobe walls. My father told me that this ditch was dug by a man named Felis Garza sometime back in the 1870s. “A lot of people don’t know who Felis Garza was,” he said, “But someone should do something about him.”

That now-dry irrigation ditch carried water from Comanche Springs and eventually irrigated nearly 5,000 acres. It ran from Fort Stockton out to our place, a distance of nearly 10-12 miles and was hand-dug with wooden shovels. It dried up in 1962 by Clayton Williams when he pumped so much water that he dried up the source aquifer that fed it.

The old irrigation ditch when it had water in it.

We found so many relics out in those adobe ruins that my family donated them to the museum at Old Fort Stockton. Here are just a few.

A U.S. Army belt buckle from the 1870s.

Military buttons, circa 1867-1887

A dragoon helmet medallion.

At the time, we thought that the soldiers who were stationed at Fort Stockton were white cavalry troops, like John Wayne and Henry Fonda in Fort Apache.

Hollywood’s version of history: Great entertainment, bad history.

It wasn’t until many years later was it finally revealed that the troopers were all black, with white commanding officers. They were known as known as “the Buffalo Soldiers”. However, this fact was pretty much hidden until I became a young man.

Photo of actual Buffalo Soldiers.

The black soldiers stationed at Fort Stockton were ex-slaves from Louisiana. It must have been a real shock to them to come out to the Chihuahuan Desert from the swamps of Louisiana. Here’s an illustration from a book drawn by Jack Jackson, titled Comanche Moon, that pretty much sums up their purpose and time at Fort Stockton.

Fort Stockton was established in 1867 to protect travelers going west. However, when the fort was built, there was already a community here called Saint Gall. According to the 1870 census, the population of the Saint Gall was 582, of whom 429 were civilians. The population was unusually cosmopolitan. Of the persons listed in the census, more than half (298) were foreign born, mostly from Mexico (261), but nine other foreign nations were represented: Ireland, 15; Prussia, 8: France, 7: Scotland, 2; Baden, 1: Bavaria, 1: Belgium, 1; Denmark, 1; and Malta, 1. The majority of the enlisted men at the fort (the black Buffalo Soldiers) had been recruited in Louisiana after the Civil War.

So you have a population that is overwhelmingly brown (residents) and black (Buffalo Soldiers). My question is, where did those 298 Mexican-Americans come from, and how long had they been there?

I didn’t think much about that conversation I had with my father in the 1960s about Felis Garza until ten years ago when I attended my first meeting as a new member of the Pecos County Historical Commission. An elderly Hispanic woman came up to me, identified herself at Aricilia Garza, the granddaughter of Felis Garza, and handed me photocopies of an original document on file at the Texas State Library in Austin.

Even though it is hand-written, you can read the date (March 10, 1876) and the names Felis Garza, Bernardo Torres and Cesario Torres in the first four lines. It also contained the signatures of Felis Garza and the Torres brothers (below).

I was floored.

Here was undeniable proof that what my dad told me as a 10-year-old boy was now verifiable.

A primary source document, on file at the Texas State Library.

Because I served as the Marker Chair for the Pecos County Historical Commission, I started the process to erect a Texas Historical Marker honoring the Garza-Torres Irrigation District. There had not been a new historical marker dedicated in Pecos County in 25 years, and the county didn’t have a single marker honoring a Mexican-American, even though the county is 70% Hispanic.

I know you’ve seen those unique Texas History markers in your travels around Texas, and there is even a guy who has created an online following as he goes around the Lone Star State and restores many aging and fading markers.

But to actually GET one of these requires a long, detailed process that relies on primary sources and actual recorded documents, not “my grandfather told me this.” In other words, you have to prove it up, because they don’t just give these things away.

I went ahead, completed all of the necessary forms, wrote a narrative explaining why this was “THC-marker-worthy” as well as including several photos and submitted it online. Then I waited until they finally announced it had been accepted and approved!

That didn’t mean it was over.

A while later I got an e-mail that the foundry that produced the markers for the THC had gone out of business and they were seeking a new supplier. Nearly three years after I first started, I received an e-mail saying the new foundry had produced the marker, and it would be shipped soon!

From there I coordinated the installation (dig a hole, plant the pole, pour cement) with our County Commissioner Nathan Reeves. He did a fantastic job of having his crew clean the area and install the marker.

Installed and covered, then the clean up around it!

Now we were set for the dedication ceremony. I followed the outline on the THC’s web site and we scheduled it for April 23. Come that morning we had close to 40 people show up, including a large contingent of descendants of Felis Garza, grandchildren and great grandchildren, who unveiled the marker.

The marker is unveiled, as the descendants of Felis Garza line up beside it.

The THC sent a representative, Jose Garza (no relation) to attend, so it had the feeling of being “official".

A three-year overnight success! Jose Garza extends his congratulations (top photo) then a close-up of the actual marker.

Now here’s the crazy thing: Most Pecos County history doesn’t begin until the fort was built. After that, the Anglos came in. But long before the fort was built (1867) there was already a community here (St. Gall) near Comanche Springs. How long had it been there?

That’s a question that is difficult to answer, because a lot of Mexican-American history isn’t written down. It is passed down from generation to generation in an oral tradition. After the Anglos came in and Pecos County was established in 1875, there was now a courthouse where records were kept and stored. Before then it was pretty much up to you to keep track of your affairs and your family history. One help was the Catholic Church, which recorded marriages, births and deaths, but by and large there just isn’t a lot written down about the decades (centuries) well before the Anglos arrived.

Nearly 100 years before Paul Revere took his ride, the Spanish Conquistadors were in Pecos County.

The first Spanish visitor to Pecos County was Cabeza de Vaca who came through here in 1528, visiting Comanche Springs before heading south towards Lajitas and Big Bend. We also know that the Spanish Conquistador who spent the most time in Pecos County was Juan Dominguez de Mendoza. In 1683 (nearly 100 years before the American Revolution) he led an expedition that traveled through Pecos County, on to Comanche Springs, then northward to Horsehead Crossing on the Pecos River. Because Mendoza kept a detailed diary of his journey, almost every landmark he visited has been located. Near Comanche Springs Mendoza recounts the killing of three buffalo bulls—one of the few times buffalo were sighted in the Big Bend. (Very few were seen west of the Pecos River.)

But after that, we don’t really have a lot until Camp Stockton, the precursor to FORT Stockton, was established in 1859.

That’s a fairly large gap in the timeline.

Throwing another disturbance in the force is something I’ve been told by a lot of older Mexican-Americans out here: Before it was called St. Gall, the little community was called Comanche, most likely because of its proximity to Comanche Springs.

I’m still searching for some documentation on that.

Unfortunately most of the high school history text books were written by people in New York, at the large publishing houses. They focused on the Anglo-Saxon pioneers instead of the Spaniards, because England and Spain were at war a lot. Also, the Spanish were Catholics, while the Pilgrims and Puritans and early settlers at Jamestown were Protestant, so there was a bit of a rub there.

We like our history to be neat and clean, but the reality is that it’s not that cut and dried.

History, like relationships, is messy.

But the truth is out there, if you can find it. (Apologies to the X Files.)

A few final thoughts on “cultural history.” Like all of my fellow baby boomers, I grew up watching Bonanza on TV, with Dan Blocker as Hoss Cartwright.

We were driving back to the ranch from Lubbock and passed through the little community of O’Donnell, Texas. I had read that Dan Blocker was from O’Donnell, and they have a little “statue” honoring him, so I pulled over.

There, in a small square, is a bronze statue of Hoss’s head.

Like much of rural Texas, O’Donnell has an almost empty downtown, and is struggling to hang on.

But for a moment, they had their chance in the spotlight when Dan Blocker saddled up with Pa, Adam and Little Joe and rode the Ponderosa. It was a reminder of Sunday nights, when we gathered around the TV. (And my favorite Bonanza episode is still “Hoss and the Leprechauns.”) And you can still watch Bonanza today on a streaming service, so Hoss is out there riding the range, in perpetuity!!!

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Adios

That performance was life-altering. I had never seen anyone play guitar like he did, and I had never heard a band with only four players sound so large and tight. I was working at Buddy magazine at the time and felt compelled to tell our readers, and the world, that The Fabulous Thunderbirds were going to be “the next big thing.”

I felt like I was present at the creation and tried to spread the gospel through the pages of Buddy.

From then on, I was a JLV fan. I tried to catch the T-Bird’s shows whenever Jimmie and the band came to town, or if I was within driving distance (Austin, Fort Worth). We struck up a friendship that continues to this day.

Last weekend I was both excited and privileged to get an invitation to Jimmie’s 75th birthday party at Antone’s in Austin. Even though it was a 5.5 hour drive from the ranch, I told Diann that we simply HAD TO GO!

The invitation.

We headed to Austin Friday morning, checked into the Westin Hotel, located conveniently across the street from Antone’s, grabbed a one-hour nap then got dressed and walked on over.

The entire club was set up for this party. There were no tickets sold, it was invitation only, and all of the seating was assigned. Our host walked us up to our table, (#6) right in front of the stage.

Great seats, eh, buddy?

There was a guy sitting right across from me wearing a Cowboys cap. I introduced myself, asked his name, and he replied, “Tom.” I shook his hand and sat down. About a minute later I said, “I didn’t catch your last name.”
”Henderson” he replied.

“OMG, are you Thomas 'Hollywood’ Henderson?”

“Yes, I am.”

I immediately asked for a selfie, and to see his Super Bowl ring which he granted most graciously.

To any older fans of the Cowboys, BEFORE Jerry owned the team, Thomas Henderson was one of the fastest and baddest linebackers to play the game in the 70s. Just a real beast with a fast motor.

We enjoyed a catered BBQ meal, had a few drinks and sang “Happy Birthday” to Jimmie

Jimmie’s twin daughters, Anna and Jeanna bring out the cake.

We then got ready for the show to start. First up was Booker T and the MGs. I knew all of their songs from listening to them on the AM radio back in junior high, but had NEVER seen him perform live. He came out and said, “The first song we’re gonna play is ‘Hang ‘em High’, then took off. It sounded just the way I had heard i for decades.

From there he went through all of his hits: “Hip Hugger” and one of my favorites “Green Onions.”

Jimmie came out to play the Steve Cropper guitar part on that number.

The “kid” on the other guitar is Booker T’s son, Booker T III.

They wrapped up their with “Time is Tight”, one of my favorite Booker T songs of all time.

For his encore, Booker T came onstage, just himself and a guitar and sang Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On.” I told Diann that I didn’t know Booker T could play the guitar and I had NEVER heard him sing before. The entire room was spellbound. Dead silence so we could hear him. Those lyrics resonate today even more so than back in ‘71 when Marvin was singing about the Vietnam War. It was truly a “moment” that you’ll never recapture, and I get chills just typing this. You simply had to be there.

Jimmie then took the stage with The Tilt-A-Whirl Band and played several numbers before calling up the blind blues singer “Soulman Sam” who remarked, “I haven’t seen Jimmie in a while” (hah!) then belted out a song that showed how he got his name.

I had remarked to everyone at our table that the green Magnatone amps I saw onstage just HAD to belong to Billy Gibbons because I saw him use them at the Jungle Show last December.

Sure enough, the Rev. Willy G showed up and took the stage, then ripped into a song that you ALL know.

“Haw, haw, haw, haw”

To top it off, Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin was in the audience. He hung out by the bar, speaking to everyone, but didn’t take the stage and did not want his photo taken. That was OK by me. By now he’s probably had his photo taken so much that he’s sick of it, but he was most cordial and spoke to everyone who came up to him.

Saw a lot of folks I knew, like Mike Buck, drummer for the Fab T’s and Steve Wertheimer who owns C-Boys in Austin, as well as Jimmie’s older daughter Tina.

Tina Vaughan and Diann, rocking the house.

The band wrapped up with a Texas classic, “Thunderbird”, a song first recorded by The Nightcaps and one that Stevie used to always play in concert. (ZZ Top opened their LP Fandango with that song, too.) It was a highly symbolic number to play for their closer.

“Juice, juice, juice, gonna make you loose, loose, loose.”

I don’t believe I have been to a cooler party in my life. I was deeply gratified to be invited and be part of an incredible evening of music that every Baby Boomer would kill to attend.

Didn’t have much time to recover, because last Friday, March 27th, was MY birthday. I was only turning 74, so it wasn’t one of those specialty, or “diamond” birthdays. Therefore I kept it pretty low-key and simple. We had our “neighbors” Houston and Laura McKenzie over for some cocktails and appetizers that Diann had prepared. (Very civilized evening.)

It’s my party and I’ll eat if I want to. Cocktails and conversation for the birthday boy!!!

Then we all ran out to the Comanche Springs Rodeo to catch Houston and Laura’s granddaughter, Brinna Downing, riding into the arena as the Rodeo Queen. We have known Brinna since she was born, so it has been wild to see her grow up so fast.

Brinna, getting ready to ride with some help from her mom, Sarah around 2014. (She looks to be about five or six years old, but someone will correct me.)

It was something to watch her ride into the arena at the rodeo, carrying the Fort Stockton flag all these years later.

Brinna is the last rider out, wearing the black hat.

It was also my first time to experience “mutton busting” in person. I had heard of this event and seen videos of it for years, but this was my first time to actually witness it up close and personal.

It is, in a word, “Wild!”

Whoever hangs onto their sheep the longest, wins, and she did! (Yes, a little girl won first place!)

It was all a real slice of life out here, west of the Pecos.

We remain on the frontier, not “out in the country.”

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Until next time, adios.

My grandfather, Roland Warnock, (kneeling in white shirt) at the dedication of Warnock Park on Hwy 385 between Fort Stockton and Marathon, TX

When I was a 10-year-old boy, I took my first airplane trip to Midland so my father and I could attend the dedication ceremony for Warnock Park, a roadside park my grandfather built for the State of Texas while he was a foreman with the Texas Highway Department (now TXDoT)

It was a pretty big deal for 1962 in Pecos County, Texas. Dignitaries came in all the way from Austin and there was a big picnic lunch served.

It made the Fort Stockton Pioneer.

That’s me, on the far right, with glasses and green plaid “Dad n Lad” shirt.

(L-R) Me, George B Finley (District Engineer Texas Highway Dept.), my grandfather, Roland, and his crew with some wives mixed in. (My grandmother, Marie, is fourth down from the right.)

Except for when LBJ ran for president in 1964, my grandfather was a staunch Democrat. (He and my grandmother despised LBJ after the 1948 Senate race when he won with fake voters down in Jim Wells County)

And another relative Charlie Warnock, was elected to serve as Pecos County Judge in the 70s and 80s.

I knew that a Democrat didn’t have much of a chance in rural Texas, so I met with the Republican Party chair and asked for help getting on the ballot, and primarily with campaign expenses. She replied that I was responsible for my own filing fee, and there would be no PAC money until I won the primary. She then told me that the two larger grassroots PACs in Texas would not contribute money to any person who voted for a Democrat in the primaries or the general election. Because I had previously voted for the incumbent Pecos County Judge, Joe Shuster, who is/was a Democrat, that knocked me out.

I then inquired about running as an Independent, but to get on the ballot I would have to get 400 signatures of registered Pecos County voters who voted Independent.

To run as a Democrat, I only had to pay the $750 filing fee at the Party Chair, Albert Valdez’s, office, which I did.

I have some loyalty to my family, so I chose to run as a Democrat, believing that the voters would choose the person over the party.

I counted on people voting for who I am.

As with the Republicans, I received no PAC money unless I won the primary, and had to finance my campaign by whatever contributions I might receive. Diann and I made a vow that I would not spend more than I took in contributions.

I also decided to forgo traditional media (brochures, newspaper ads, radio) and use social media primarily. I set up accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and Tik Tok to lay out my vision for what I wanted to TRY and accomplish, if elected.

I felt a lot like Jimmy Stewart in Mister Smith Goes to Washington, who just wants to build a Boy Scout ranch.

My campaign was going to be the triumph of the uncluttered mind.

I ran on these four ideas:

• Restore Comanche Springs to a year-round flow.

• Support our hospital

• Provide a paid driver and a van to take veterans to the doctors at the VA Hospital in Big Spring

• And partner with the city to build a teen center.

I made a video about each topic, and posted them to all three social media platforms, Instagram, Facebook and Tik Tok.

I was encouraged to get on Tik Tok by a young DJ I had hired to play gigs at the Fraternal Order of Eagles and the Rotary Cruise Party. DJ Duli Jase’s advice was to get on Tik Tok and starting posting often, which I did.

Imagine my shock when one of my Tik Tok videos got 29,600 views!!!

There’s the number of views, lowest left of the screenshot. I guess that now I’m an influencer.

I wanted to run on issues, so I posted regular videos on all three social media platforms outlining my “vision.” Much like this:

I posted a new video every three to four days, always outlining what I wanted to try and do, once elected.

I also did some “traditional” media, like radio and our local newspaper.

One of my ads.

My hope was that people would gravitate to my ideas, because a Pecos County Judge oversees business in Pecos County, and has nothing to do with the national issues that define Democrats or Republicans.

Come Election Day, I parked my little VW Beetle across from the courthouse polling station.

And hung out with the other candidates who were prohibited from getting too close to the polling place, so we all stood across the street.

Election Day in Pecos County, Texas!!!

That night Diann and I went to an election watch party hosted by one of the Republican candidates, Emily Natividad, whom I met during the candidate forum. She was always most gracious, so I accepted her invitation and was glad I did.

At the watch party!

In the end, I lost my Democratic primary race to Santiago Cantu. As they say, success has many fathers but failure is an orphan. I don’t have evidence to prove my contention, but the fact that Pecos County is nearly 80% Hispanic probably didn’t help me.

The other thing is that the vast majority of primary voters out here voted in the GOP primary, not the Democratic one, so I was at another disadvantage.

I had thought that the people that knew me and my family history out here would vote for the person, not the party. Everyone knows I’m not some “pizzagate” pedophile, and I’ve got a long history of gun ownership and hunting.

Does this photo make me look like a “liberal”?

I guess that the person and ideas don’t matter in Deep Red Texas, because the Democratic brand has become toxic here. How much so? Several of our friends stopped talking to us when I ran as a Democrat.

This is a deeper problem that our country has to somehow surmount, but I don’t know how to do it when the hatred is so intense. I had hoped that respect, decency and good manners would matter when I ran, but not so. I didn’t run any negative ads or disparage my opponent in any manner, but it didn’t fly with the voters.

Am I sorry I ran?

No.

I got to meet a lot of people I never would have met and I got to get some ideas out there that people groked to. Several folks told me I was right about our groundwater, but for the vast majority of voters it went over their heads. Water was something that comes out of your tap, so they never thought about it.

I leave you with this video I produced for YouTube that explains our groundwater situation in Pecos County, and how I had hoped to address it. This is something that Texas is grappling with, but there is no solution in sight.

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And please share this with anyone you know.

Until next time, adios!

It was 13 degrees that morning!

The ice set up pretty quickly on the trees then it all turned into snow.

We got between two and four inches of snow so it wasn’t quite as slippery as it was in Austin and Dallas. However, the cold did wreak some havoc. When I went out to open my car door, the handle was so brittle, it just broke right off.

They used to make metal door handles.

It also brought the wildlife into the yard looking for something to eat.

I wasn’t quite as prepared this time because I did not have my son, Roland, to help me gather firewood. We kept a fire going, but it only lasted two days. Then we ran out of mesquite!!!

It was good and hot while it lasted!!!

Finally the sun came out and things got a lot better.

The snow melted and we had another great sunset!

It wasn’t too long after this that I flew up to Telluride for my annual ski trip with my buddies, Edwin, Joe and Paul. This would be our eighth year in a row to go and we’ve always enjoyed it immensely. Spend the day skiing, have lunch on the hill at Goronno Ranch, then have a cocktail at the Stronghouse Brew Pub down in Telluride before heading back to Ouray for dinner at one of their fine restaurants. I like the Outlaw Steakhouse and the seven-layer deep dish lasagna at Bella Vino.

On the lift with Edwin, Paul and Joe.

At the Stronghouse Brew Pub apres ski.

Dinner at the Outlaw Steakhouse in Ouray. (I look so serious.)

The snow was good as was the weather.

However, on my last day, I slipped on a patch of ice, slowly turned around backwards, fell downhill, landed on my shoulder and severely fractured my collarbone. This is extremely embarrassing for me because I’ve been skiing since I was 18 and have had several crashes, including one where I broke a ski, but I’ve never gotten injured on the hill or had to be carried down in a sled.

I’ve skiied for more than 55 years without any injury, until now. (Me back in 1982, showing off.)

I guess there’s a first time for everything because that’s what happened.

You probably read about the ski patrol strike against the Telluride resort back during Christmas and New Year’s. I say pay those guys whatever they want because not many people can ski down a steep hill pulling a sled with somebody as big as me in it.

I fell at the beginning of the Sandia run up near the top of the mountain.

Here it is on the trail map, and a video of us riding up on the lift just before I crashed.

Edwin, Paul and I had ridden the Prospect Express lift to ski down to lunch with Joe.

It’s not a black diamond run and it’s one that we had skied before, so it was weird that I suffered this fall. Worse, it was a slow, twisting fall, the worst kind to have if you’re a skier. (Better to crash forward going fast because then both your skis pop off, and you can at least tumble freely!)

I heard something crack when I hit and knew that was not good.

A passing skier came up and asked if I could make it down. I could feel something rattling around inside my shoulder and told him, “No.” He called the ski patrol on his cell phone.

The first ski patroller, Bailey, showed up in five minutes, then he was joined by Howdy (that’s what his name tag said.) They both loaded me. up, then skied me down to a road, loaded me into a van and drove me into town, right to the clinic in Telluride.

Bailey and Howdy prep the sled to take me down the mountain.

The entire staff at the Telluride Clinic was outstanding. Cannot say enough good things about them.

The x-ray showed that I had a major fracture and separation of my collarbone and will require surgery to reattach it with a plate and screws. I now have something in common with Lindsey Vonn!

I don’t like how this looks! My broken collarbone X-ray.

The worst part is having to wear the sling.

I don’t mind wearing a sling because the only way you’re not hurting is when you have that thing on. It keeps your arm immobile, next to your body. Everything else you do hurts, including sleep, which you have to do almost sitting up after downing a strong painkiller.

Flying home, in a sling.

I had to fly back home the next day, but unfortunately my connecting flight from Dallas-Fort Worth to Midland got canceled because of bad weather in Midland. It forced me to spend the night at the DFW Hyatt. The bad part was that I had to get up at 6:47 am to catch the next flight and then we had planned to drive to Waco.

My first cousin, Mary Helen, and her husband, Sam, lost their daughter recently and the memorial service was set for Sunday afternoon. She is a close relative and I did not want to miss this. Actually driving is about the only time my shoulder doesn’t hurt because your arm is in a sling and you have the seatbelt across it to keep it immobile. If you move at all your shoulder will hurt, so to keeping it a sling with the seatbelt holding it in place is a great way to reduce the pain.

We had time Saturday night to have a Valentines’ dinner with my old Baylor roommate, John Wicker, and his wife Cindy then hung out with them Sunday morning until we went over to the memorial service.

We somehow snuck in a lunch at El Ranchito!!!

The tacos at El Ranchito! Muy bueno.

Drove back to the ranch Monday morning. People told me I was either crazy or tough to drive with a broken collarbone but actually driving is one of the few times your shoulder doesn’t hurt.

I go to the orthopedic in Odessa on Monday, February 23 to get checked out for surgery. Will keep everyone posted but I can tell you that this has been the only time in 55 years I’ve been injured skiing and I’ve taken some hard crashes. I don’t know if this marks the end of my ski career or Lindsey Vonn’s, but we’ll just have to give it some further study and get back to you later.

For perspective, this is my very first ski trip to Ruidoso back in 1971 when it was called Sierra Blanca (Now it is Ski Apache.) Note how Miles and I don’t even have any decent ski clothes, but we were too young and ignorant to realize how miserable we were. That first trip hooked me. I’ve loved skiing ever since.

Everybody stay safe out there and I hope you had a great Valentines.

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Adios.

However, it is easily the second-most iconic location in Texas history because of all of the incredible figures who have crossed there, including:

• The Comanches, who came by the full moon of each September to raid into northern Mexico.

• The Conquistadors, first Cabez de Vaca then Mendoza, who were out here before the Jamestown colony was founded.

• The U.S. Army

• The Butterfield Overland Stage

• And, most famously, Oliver Loving and Charles Goodnight who led the cattle drive made famous in Lonesome Dove.

Last year’s celebration attracted nearly 1,200 people, so planning an event like this takes tons of preparation. Every month the committee meets out in the lonely little Girvin schoolhouse, in what remains of the ghost town of Girvin.

The old Girvin schoolhouse.

Our group is made up of quite a cross-section of Pecos County and San Angelo residents, chief among them the chairperson and rancher, Ernest Woodward. He and his brothers, Snap and Skip Woodward, run a huge ranch in Pecos County that started raising sheep, but eventually moved to cattle. They used to ship thousands of sheep as well as tons of wool from the railway shipping point at Girvin.

Loading up sacks of wool for shipping.

At one time, Girvin shipped more livestock than any other rail stop in the southern United States. Ranchers from miles around drove their herds here to load them onto rail cars for markets in Fort Worth and other buying points.

But those days are gone. Now about all that remains is the old schoolhouse, which was made out of brick, so it’s still standing. I got there after driving through the mesquites just off of Hwy 11 to get to it.

The road to the schoolhouse.

The committee was on the porch, visiting before we headed inside to start the meeting.

Our crew, bringing Horsehead Crossing to live every year.

Once inside we tended to business, getting bills paid, looking at what could be improved on and tying up any loose ends as we got into serious “planning mode.”

Meetings are always a bit tiring, even when you are all on the same page.

As Larry the Cable Guy would say, we “got r dun” then headed back to Fort Stockton, McCamey or San Angelo to grab lunch. I was invited to join two of our attendees, Revis and Mario, at Tacos OJ in Fort Stockton, one of my favorite Mexican food places.

Revis and Mario make lunch plans.

On my way out I stopped to get a last photo at McKee’s Bar, one of my all-time fave dive bars that went out of business right after COVID.

I still miss that place.

McKee’s Bar, now sitting empty at the Girvin crossroads.

At one time it was a real gem out in the desert. I loved taking friends there for a cold beer and meeting up with the ranchers of the Trans Pecos and a few oil field workers who came buy for a cold one after getting off of work.

McKees Bar, during better times.

Diann, with Ernest Woodward back when the bar was open. If we drove by and saw his truck, we always stopped.

The demise of McKee’s Bar and the Fraternal Order of Eagles means that there are no longer any true “dive bars” left around Fort Stockton. The Eagles was my “go to” dive bar. It opened in 1964, but alas it shut down last year. It was a private club for a fraternal organization. I served as its last president.

My photo on the “wall of fame”, as the last president of the Fort Stockton Fraternal Order of Eagles, Comanche Aerie #2250.

I have always liked the Eagles for two reasons: 1) you had to be a member to get in, and 2) they had the cheapest drinks in town. $2.50 domestic beers and $5 shots. You could get a good buzz for just $15!!! (Try that in Dallas.)

It also boasted some “colorful clientele”, some real characters from Pecos County, primarily older folks. (I was one of the youngest members there!)

Watching the football game with a few other members.

Alas, we had to shut it down when some unscrupulous members embezzled more than $ 80,000 from the treasury and we didn’t even have enough money to pay our liquor tax. It was a sad end. Several folks asked me why we didn’t prosecute the guilty parties, but it is nearly impossible to get a jury to convict a local of anything out here because everyone knows each other and they don’t want to send their neighbor to jail. As a matter of fact, no one has been sent to prison for murder in Pecos County in more than 100 years. There have been several murders committed, but no convictions resulting in jail time, or executions.

This article from the Fort Stockton Pioneer from 1967 shows what I’m talking about.

Even though he killed an unarmed man at a local bar, in front of witnesses, the jury sentenced him to five years probation!!!

It’s very much that frontier ethos out here where the belief “somebody needed killing” still runs strong. As William Earney, the DA in the case said afterwards, “There is nothing more exasperating than a beer-joint killing. There can be 14 people crowded into one room and they didn’t see a damn thing that went on.”

My sadness on the demise of these two dive bars is that I have always loved dive bars. When I was growing up in south Mississippi my Baptist family considered bars to be dens of sin, a dirty place where bad things happened. As a result I don’t really feel like I’m in a bar when I’m at some place like Applebee’s. I want to feel like I’m doing something WRONG! You just don’t get that feeling at bars in hotel lobbies, or the ones adjoining a restaurant. Therefore I’ve always sought out dive bars when I need to bend an elbow or enjoy a cold brew on tap.

On that cheery ending note, we wrapped things up this week with another trip to Lubbock to see our granddaughter, Caroline. As I say after each visit, I’m always glad to see my grandchild, but I keep looking for a shortcut to Lubbock from Fort Stockton.

Miles and miles of Texas, near Lubbock County. Just set your cruise control and stay awake!!!

Hope everyone reading this remains healthy and prosperous.

Stay safe out there.

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Adios, for now!
See you next time.

(And I still believe I have the best-looking granddaughter in Texas, and maybe the entire USA.)

One of the Garrisons, performing at the Grey Mule Saloon for the Fort Stockton Christmas parade.

My late mother used to always get stressed over the Christmas holidays. “There is just too much going on,” she would say.

I got a taste of that the past three weeks when things kicked off out here in Fort Stockton and kept going on non-stop until today, New Year’s Eve.

First up was the annual Fort Stockton downtown Christmas parade and holiday party held at the Annie Riggs Museum. Diann and I got a prime spot on the porch of the Riggs Museum and watched the marchers and floats come by.

The museum had tons of Christmas treats out for all, and even the Grinch stopped by!

The Grinch didn’t steal this Christmas!

We headed over to the Grey Mule for a little Christmas cheer then headed back to the ranch to get some rest before our drive to Dallas in the morning.

Because none of our three kids could make it out to the ranch for Christmas Day, we opted to do an early Christmas with them, first with Roland and Hallie in Dallas, then with Travis and granddaughter Caroline in Lubbock.

Best part of the Dallas visit was getting to go to Northpark. I’ve always loved how they decorate the entire mall. It makes me feel like Christmas.

Christmas trees and poinsettias line the mall walkways.

Enjoyed our time with the kiddos, especially our meals. On Monday I was the guest of Mike Rhyner for his podcast, Your Dark Companion. Mike has been a mainstay of DFW media since the 1970s when he was on KZEW, but he really took off as the host of The Hardline show on KTCK, or “The Ticket” as it was known. That show, and station, dominated DFW radio for several years until Mike retired. He stayed off the air for a few short years, then re-surfaced on a new station called The Freak. Unfortunately its investors were not very patient, and after only a few months on the air they pulled the financing.

Mike has now taken to Spotify for his podcast, and apparently it is drawing good numbers. I confess that I don’t normally listen to podcasts, but I jumped at the chance to appear on his.

We got set up in his little studio, then he took off and asked me about my days “when Dallas rocked” at Buddy magazine.

With “the old grey wolf as Mike calls himself just before we taped the show.

It was a great time, and I really appreciated the opportunity. You can watch/listen to his entire podcast here.

There was no rest as we came back to the ranch in time for the Pecos County Senior Citizen’s Center Christmas potluck luncheon. We even had live music!!!

Al Haney on flute, and James from McCoy’s Hardware in Fort Stockton on guitar entertained all of us “old people.”

Things continued at a breakneck pace as we drove out to our “neighbors” the McKenzies for their annual Christmas Eve party. We have been coming to this shindig for nearly 38 years now. First one was before Diann and I were married!

Entrance to the McKenzie party!

Short video of the crowd and the snacks!

Me and DA Harral.

Was glad to see my old friend DA Harral there. We’ve known each other for 70 years now. He is one of the true “old time” ranching families from west of the Pecos. His place has been running livestock for nearly 150 years!

The crowd as an eclectic mix of old-time ranchers and folks from town. It was a lot of fun!

Diann and I woke up Christmas morning to an empty house, so we were “home alone” for Christmas Day. We decided to be lazy and just stay at the house in our PJs with our cat, Nate. Good decision!!!

The next day, December 26, I had to wake up and go get hay for Gunner, our horse. It was also my brother Miles’ birthday. He died nearly five years ago, but the day after Christmas was always special because we always celebrated his birthday out at the ranch, or else when Miles, Andy and I camped out over on Andy’s place down in a hackberry grove. I thought about him all day, but especially when I went to get hay at the McKenzie’s alfalfa farm, which was right next to our old campsite.

The winter sky, on December 26.

Getting ready to load up with hay.

I got that done, drove back to the place, unloaded all of the bales then packed to leave for Austin the next morning for The Jungle Show at Antone’s nightclub. I was meeting my old buddy Joe Blair for what would be our fifth year in a row to attend.

Billy Gibbons and Jimmie Vaughan, dishing out the hits in a small venue. If there is a better show in Texas that night, I’d like to see it.

Joe had his photo taken with one of his idols, Jim Franklin. In the 70s, there was no bigger artist in Austin than Jim. He did all of the posters for the Armadillo World Headquarters as well as Willie’s Picnic. The last time I saw Jim was in 1974, when he was onstage at the Armadillo to introduce the New Riders of the Purple Sage.

Jim and Joe.

And Jim onstage in 1974, at the Armadillo World Headquarters. (Photo by Gary Garrison)

The Jungle Show was, again, like a 70s high school reunion, but minus the people you couldn’t stand. It was a true baby boomer’s delight.

Chris Layton on drums, Billy Gibbons and Jimmie Vaughan on guitars and Mike Flanigan on the Hammond B3 organ.

I woke up the next morning none too worse for the wear and headed to Cisco’s to have breakfast with Joe.

Somehow this place has withstood the wrecking ball. It’s a true Austin original.

After a breakfast of migas and coffee, I climbed into the car and headed to Dallas, with the obligatory stop at the Czech Stop in West to get some kolaches. (You cannot pass by this place!)

Years before Buc-ees there was the Czech Stop!!!

My trip to Dallas was two fold: First I wanted to congratulate my son, Roland, for getting a promotion at his job, and I wanted to visit with an old friend and member of our bicycle club, Oak Cliff Old Farts on Bikes (OCOFOB), Kayo Mullins. I met Kayo when Diann and I first moved to Oak Cliff and she heard about this bike club and suggested I check it out. I did, and that bunch of us rode together for more than 30 years.

The OCOFOB bunch lined up in Marathon for our annual Comanche Moon Ride where we rode by the light of the first full moon in September from Marathon to our ranch, all without lights!!! Kayo is second from the left.

Kayo has not been in good health. He has MS and Alzheimer’s, so I thought it best to visit him while he was still with us. We mainly talked about our bike rides out west, like the first one we did when we rode from Balmorhea to Fort Davis.

That’s Kayo behind Jeff Chandler as we head up Wild Rose Pass. Unfortunately Jeff left us a few years ago.

Although we were riding bikes instead of horses, the fact that we did so many rides out west of the Pecos had me think of us as more like cowboys than cyclists. I pulled out an old copy of J. Frank Dobie’s The Mustangs and found a passage that applied to my meeting with Kayo.

In it, Dobie tells of an old cowhand going to meet his buddy at a nursing home. It had been several years since they rode together, but he knew his friend was in bad shape and needed a last visit. The old cowhand had one last request. “Open up that window, go outside, build a fire and burn me a steak. Even though I can’t eat it, I want to remember what it smells like.”

It somehow felt appropriate.

That evening I headed over to The Kessler Theater to catch my good friends, Jim Suhler, and Shawn Phares performing. Didn’t stay long because I had to drive back home the next morning, a 432 mile drive. The opening act, Jake Quillin was very good, too.

I got up the next morning and drove back to the ranch. Somewhere near Midland I hit snow, but after I turned south on FM 1053 to Fort Stockton it stopped. Got home in time to see the javelinas come into the yard to feed at sunset.

The collared peccary, or Gregory Peccary as Joe calls them.

Next morning I was up at sunrise to feed Gunner. And it was cold!!!

Great time, good holiday, and now it’s on to 2026 and a New Year!

Hope you all had a good one.

If you like my writing, please consider becoming a paying subscriber. (Gunner needs more hay and we don’t want the javelinas to go hungry either.)

Adios!!!

Solo, the “yearbook” for all cadets who got their wings at Gibbs Field in Fort Stockton.

They looked like high school annuals, but they contained photos of young pilots.

The cadets in the Solo yearbooks came from all walks of life.

And gracing the pages in all of them was a picture of my grandmother, Marie.

Marie Warnock, dispatcher at Gibbs Field, Fort Stockton, 1944.

The rise of Air Power in World War II is a story that is unprecedented in the United States. From ordering 435 airplanes in 1939, the US was to build 300,000 airplanes between July 1940 and August 1945. Planes are worthless without crews and the training organizations expanded accordingly.

Three large training bases were built out in west Texas:

• Pyote

• Fort Stockton

• and Marfa

But why out here? Well for one thing, far West Texas had more flying days a year here than anywhere else in the country along with increased visibility (you could see forever) and a lack of air traffic (no planes to run into.

Fort Stockton had Gibbs Field, which was built on the west end of the town.

The abandoned control tower at Gibbs Field where my grandmother served as the dispatcher.

Gibbs Field received its first class of 500 cadets on June 26, 1942. They served a nine-week instruction period to train them as fighter pilots, then they rotated out and another 500 came in.

On completion of their first solo flight, the cadets had to kiss “Solo”, the mascot they kept at the base.

The planes they used for training were the T-6 North American Aviation “Texan” and the Fairchild PT-19.

The T-6 was later dressed up after the war to use in the movies Tora, Tora, Tora, God Is My Co-Pilot and The Flying Tigers, and nicknamed “the Hollywood Zero”.

A T-6 re-painted with a Japanese flag on its fuselage and a black cowling in Tora, Tora, Tora.

The Fairchild provided a more advanced type of aircraft. Speeds were higher and wing loading more closely approximated that of combat aircraft. Its virtues were that it was inexpensive and simple to maintain. The PT-19 truly lived up to its nickname, the “Cradle of Heroes”.

When the war broke out, the Army Air Corps did not have enough flight instructors to crank out the 300,000 pilots needed. So at Fort Stockton’s Gibbs Field, the Army contracted with a private school, the Pacific Flight School out of California. The base had military commanders, with private instructors in a “hybrid” system,

Logo for the Pacific Air School

In the three years that Gibbs Field operated, there were only two fatalities, when a plane crashed with the instructor and his student on board.

The Solo yearbooks also contained some pages that proved that although these cadets were training in service to their country, they were still red-blooded American males! Check out this illustration drawn by one of the cadets.

Combat pilots usually have one thing on their mind………

There was also this very interesting page.

Have things really changed that much ?

The base at nearby Pyote was used to train B-17 crews. The B-17 Flying Fortress was the workhorse of the Allied bombers, and was memorialized in the films Memphis Belle and 12 O’Clock High. The aircraft was not pressurized, meaning the crew had to dress for the extremely cold temperatures and the open windows on the fuselage that the waist gunners fired their .50 calibre machine guns from.

A B-17 Flying Fortress

Pyote was a small community near Monahans that got its name from the Chinese railway workers who could not pronounce “coyote”, so the rail stop was given that name. The little enclave was suddenly invaded by a construction crews and aircraft maintenance and instructors until the population of the base grew steadily to a peak of over 6,500 in October 1944. Within four months of its opening, the base had become the largest bomber installation in the country.

The tarpaper barracks at Pyote that housed the cadets training in the B-17s.

Because Pyote is only 62 miles from Fort Stockton, there was quite a bit of overlap when the B-17s took off. For one thing the gunners had to practice with their .50 calibre machine guns. Several targets were laid on the ground in nearby Coyanosa. So many rounds were fired at them that a friend and fellow rancher David Garvin can still go out in the fields and find empty casings and misfired rounds.

Misfired .50 calibre machine gun rounds.

There was also a lot of the Pyote cadets who were happy to make the drive to nearby Fort Stockton. Monahans was the closest “town” to the base, but it was smaller than Stockton, and more importantly there was a larger population of attractive females in Fort Stockton, so it wasn’t uncommon to find Pyote cadets making the short drive to check out the ladies here.

This led to some interesting interactions with the Pecos County Sheriff’s Department. In one instance, Deputy Ira Cox pulled over a car load of cadets and asked them where they were from.

“Pyote,” came their reply.

“No,” said the deputy. “Where is your hometown?”

“Chicago,” came the reply.

“Well if you’re from Chicago, why does your license plate say Illinois?”

You can't make this stuff up.

When the war ended the bases were shut down and the planes removed. Pyote basically disappeared, although it did get its 15 minutes of fame in the movie Fandango, when it was used for a scene about the Pecos Parachute Club.

Gibbs Field became the Fort Stockton Airport, but it never saw anywhere near the amount of air traffic.

My grandmother got her discharge papers and a letter of recommendation.

The old control tower was torn down a few years ago because it had become infested with termites. About the only thing remaining are the runways.

This image of a group of P-38 Lockheed Lightnings flying over the Sierra Madera in Pecos County is one of the endearing photos from one of the Solo yearbooks.

Lockheed Lightnings over the Sierra Madera in Pecos County.

The last page of each Solo yearbook contained the poem, High Flight set over a photo of Gibbs Field. For many years the TV station in Waco used to sign off at midnight with this poem, set to footage of jet planes performing acrobatics. Now TV stations don’t sign off anymore. They broadcast 24/7.

But I still recall this when I was a student at Baylor in 1970-74.

“High Flight” This poem was always in the last page of every Solo yearbook.

I don’t know if we’ll ever see our country have to ramp up and produce so much men and material for a war again. I hope not, but for every pilot, gunner, or bombardier sent overseas, there were thousands of people out in the West Texas desert supporting them.

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And for now, be happy our country is at peace.

Adios, and feel free to share this post with your friends.

She responded most graciously.

When I got back to the ranch I mailed her a thank-you note with a print of the photo and explained that because I was an original member of the Baylor Line, I wanted to know if there would be any way I could run onto the field with them at the Baylor-Utah game on November 15.

About a week later I received an e-mail from a Jordy Dickey, Director of Student Activities that read, “Your note from the President’s Office was passed along to me as our office facilitates the Baylor Line tradition.”

She went on to say that they didn't allow alumni to run with the Line “for safety reasons”, but would I like to come speak to the Line and fire them up before they hit the field?

I hit “reply” immediately.

She sent me a note on where to meet her at the stadium and at what time.

I was in like Flynn and ready to go.

Diann and I drove off from the ranch Friday morning, headed east on Hwy 190 through the big, open country between Iraan, El Dorado and Menard.

Before you leave Iraan, you better go to the bathroom and pack a lunch.

There is also no cell service for nearly 70 miles.

But it’s one of the best drives in Texas, IMO. Tons of great scenery and rugged country.

Arrived in Waco some six hours later then headed to the Baylor men’s basketball game with my old Baylor roomie, John, and his wife Cindy.

While the Foster pavilion is new and shiny, it has extremely steep steps that make it scary. Other than being a hazard to old people (like myself) it was fun to watch the Baylor men defeat Tarleton State.

Got up Saturday morning, but with kickoff at 6:00 pm we had the entire day ahead of us. While our spouses went shopping, John and I took a drive down memory lane.

Back when we were at Baylor (70-74) the center of activity for us was the frat house we had over on 9th street. Now, Baylor did not allow frats/clubs to have houses, so our workaround was that three of our members lived here. We swapped out residents each year, but the deal was you could live there for just $25 a month per person in rent, but you had to agree that all of the club’s parties would be held here. Sounded good to me!

We climbed all over it for this photo in the 1972 Baylor yearbook, The Roundup.

And here’s how it looks today.

I knocked on the door and asked the young men now living there if we could come inside and take a look. They obliged.

The layout was the same. Here is the den today.

And how it looked in 1972 during one of our parties.

Man, if those walls could talk! (And apparently stealing highway signs is still a thing.)

Also checked out the living room, which hadn’t changed much. Still a party!

And here’s how it looked when we all watched the 1972 Dallas-Miami Super Bowl on a 13-inch color TV with rabbit ears. (If you are too young to know what rabbit ears are, look it up.)

BTW, the Cowboys won that game!

Ran by the Baylor bookstore and picked up a few items, then got back to change into our “whiteout” gear because Baylor wanted everyone to wear white to the game. Followed the instructions I was sent and met Jordy by Gate A.

Now the Baylor Line is completely different today from when I was an original freshman member back in 1970. For one thing there just weren’t that many of us “back in the old days” because our football team was horrid. Baylor won only three games in three years under coach Bill Beall. We barely had enough Line members to fill up a row or two, much less run onto the field like they do today.

Nowadays they have so many freshmen running the field that they have to limit their numbers, and you have to get there very early to get a spot. Roughest part (to me) is they have to sit on the concrete for an hour or so before they get to run.

Today’s Baylor Line, coed and ready!!!

They gave me a bullhorn and put me in between the barricades in front of the kids and turned me loose. Here’s what I said.

My 30 seconds of fame were up, and I’m sure I imparted some lasting words of wisdom to them. (Hah!) I walked over to meet John, Cindy and Diann at the alumni tailgate, then we headed into the stadium.

Diann isn’t a Baylor alum, but she is a good sport about it. Cindy bleeds green and gold, and dresses it!

I still believe we have one of the best stadiums in the country, mainly because of its design, with wide concourses, tons of concessions and a great location on the Brazos River.

The game itself was very frustrating. The Bears racked up lots of yardage, but not enough points. Plus Utah scored on four or five big plays of 50 yards or more. Try as our team may, they were never able to close the gap.

However, there was a great moment of levity when several students (male of course) got in the upper decks, took off their shirts and began waving them and yelling. This all got started at an Oklahoma State game a few weeks back and has now gone viral.

In my 55 years of attending Baylor games, I’ve never seen a fan, much less an entire section, go shirtless. Even the tuba players from the band went up there!!!

It was the best part of the game.
We headed back to the house somewhat disappointed in our football fortunes, but happy to have seen old friends. I’ve come to realization that no matter who you are, how much money you have (or don’t have), or whatever your political affiliation we are all bonded by a love (like?) of Baylor. It’s the one common denominator our alumni enjoys. (Maybe it’s this way at UT, but I’m not sure.)

After coffee and a great breakfast we said goodbye to John and Cindy and started the drive back to the ranch. We encountered this stop light in the middle of nowhere between El Dorado and Iraan.

I’ve also come to the disappointing conclusion that much of rural Texas today looks like a third-world country. (No, I don’t hate Texas. I just see a lot of run-down places out in the countryside and it makes me sad.)

This house was once someone’s dream………. until it wasn’t.

Got back to the ranch while it was still daylight. Fed our horse, Gunner, and enjoyed another great West Texas sky.

Love that cobalt blue!

It was a great trip and I felt very honored to have a chance to be feted by my university. Baylor has grown tremendously from the time I was there, but there are still some things that remain the same.

So proud to be a part of it.

Now if we could just get a winning football team again

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Just glad to still be around.

Adios!

(PS Fort Stockton has been hosting a Day of the Dead every November 2. They have a special place in downtown where they let you put up photos of your departed loved ones and light a candle for them. I put my brother, Miles, up this year, as I have for the past five years since he left us. It’s a Hispanic tradition that I embrace.)

We stay busier than we’ve ever been. Here’s a rundown of how we spent the past month.

It all started with a party down in Marfa, thrown by Oak Cliff friend Scott Chase and his wife, Debra. He holds one each year at the Hotel Paisano and rents the Rock Hudson Suite.
Diann and I motored down from the ranch for it and were tickled to see our good friend Ann Powell there, along with noted defense attorney Dick DeGuerin.

I first met Dick back in 1995 when we hosted our 40th Anniversary of Giant out on the Evans Ranch and held a barbecue in front of the old Reata ruins. Have stayed in touch since.

But back to the party. We had a fabulous time. Thank you, Scott and Debra, for hosting!

The next weekend we entertained my life-long friend, Edwin Smith for our annual dove hunt. It is always good to get out into the frontier that is our country. No other houses, no cars or sounds of civilization. You are truly on the edge of the world.

Edwin set up in his hunting spot. That camo is really working!

Then looking for a downed bird. (He found it!)

Edwin has been coming out here to hunt with us since 1977. Here he is on a dove hunt back in the 1980s with Scott Phares. (We interviewed Scott in our documentary Jimmie and Stevie Ray Vaughan, Brothers in Blues.)

Saturday night we drove into town for Barrio Fest, a celebration of Fort Stockton’s Hispanic culture. There have been Mexican-Americans here in Pecos County since 1683. They threw a big street dance downtown that was well attended. Entire thing was free! Check it out.

As my late mother, a strong Southern Baptist from south Mississippi, once said, “We could learn a lot from the Mexican people. They know how to have a good time.”

It was a good time, and reminded me very much of the old times we’ve spent together since childhood. Edwin took off on Monday, so Tuesday morning I rode to Hamilton, TX with my good buddy Houston McKenzie. Daughter Sarah’s pickup truck had broken down there about a week ago. It was fixed, and he needed someone to ride there with him, then drive Sarah’s repaired pickup back to his ranch.

Houston at the wheel on our way to Hamilton. He’s done so many favors for me that I didn’t hesitate to help out.

Got back Tuesday night and by Thursday morning Diann and I were on the road to Lubbock.

The road does go on forever.

This time it was to watch a speech being delivered by our granddaughter, Caroline, to the entire school at Preston Smith Elementary. She was running for class historian.

Caroline by her campaign poster. She shoulda won just for it!

Alas, she lost and was crushed by it. Tried to cheer her up, but she was pretty inconsolable. Stayed until Monday morning and drove back to the ranch.

On about two days rest, I was up Thursday morning, driving to Dallas to meet Rob Garner and look over the archives of Ron McKeown. I’m pretty much one of the last people standing who can ID all of the people in his photos. The bulk of them were taken in the 70s when he and I were on the staff at Buddy magazine. (Stoney used to always spell it, “staph.”) I wrote about Ron extensively on a previous post, but if you need a refresher on the guy, go here. He was an amazing dude who took so many incredible photos that he shoulda been famous.

There were two photos of his I really wanted to find. One was of Ruby Starr, taken backstage at the Cotton Bowl when she and Black Oak Arkansas played the KZEW Goodwill concert in April of 1976.

I found it.

Ruby Starr, standing in the tiled showers at the Cotton Bowl. Photo by Ron McKeown.

The other was of Priscilla Davis, ex-wife of T. Cullen Davis, who was shot by her ex-husband (allegedly) in her mansion in Fort Worth. Priscilla was wounded, but survived. However, her live-in boyfriend at the time, Stan Farr, was killed. Ron got this photo of Priscilla, and who I was told was Stan Farr. However, after I published it on our When Dallas Rocked Facebook page, a few commenters insisted that was NOT Stan Farr. I really haven’t had time to research it, but I think it still remains an amazing photo that typifies Texas, and DFW, in the 1970s.

Tell me if you don’t agree.

Priscilla Davis and friend.

Come Saturday morning I got up and met son, Roland, for our annual father-son trip to NYC. We were on a true foodie tour, but planned to catch The Book of Mormon on Broadway first.

The stage for The Book of Mormon. (They don’t allow photos during the performance.)

If you haven’t seen this Broadway musical, be forewarned that it can be pretty offensive at the start. But it takes a better turn at the end and actually displays a lot of heart, basically giving the message that everyone wants to have a friend.

I also laughed more than I ever have at any musical, high school or Broadway. Yes, the language is filthy, but it IS funny!

Sunday morning we were on a mission to get breakfast/brunch at the Golden Diner in Chinatown. One of Roland’s chef friends had recommended the place highly, so we decided to try it out. We chose to get over there by CitiBike, choosing a mount from the racks of rental bikes you see all over New York City.

There are also bike lanes throughout New York, so we mapped out a route from our “luxurious” hotel in Brooklyn to Chinatown. On the way it would take us over the East River via the Manhattan Bridge.

The map showed that the route was only 6.2 miles, a distance I had ridden easily back home. Grabbed a bike using the app and took off. I went less than two miles when I gave up. The rental CitiBike weighed a ton and only had two speeds. I was used to my lightweight, skinny-tire road bike, but pedaling this monstrosity was like pedaling an M-1 Abrams tank. We swapped out for E-bikes at the next rack and what a difference that made. I had never ridden one before so it was all a new and very different experience.

For one thing, I thought that an e-bike was just an electric moped. You turn the throttle on the handlebar grip and you go. No, you have to actually turn the pedals, but the second you do the electric motor kicks in and off you go. It was so easy even a fat man could do it.

We meandered through Brooklyn until we came to the pedestrian/bike lane on the Manhattan Bridge, where we easily motored up the winding onramp and were soon over the East River.

They had little “cut outs” on the bike path so you could pull over and get a look at everything. Quite a view!

After I snapped the East River pic, it was back onto the pedestrian-bike lane, and on to Chinatown.

We were told that it would an hour and a half wait if you didn’t have a reservation. We decided we had come this far, so why not? Got in the line that wrapped around the building and waited our turn.

Yes, we are getting in line for pancakes, but not just ANY pancake.

The entire fuss is about these pancakes. The Honey Butter Pancakes. They are made with yeast, buttermilk and sugar, while the syrup contains honey, maple syrup and melted butter.
It was the best thing I have ever put in my mouth.

We split ONE pancake and their signature breakfast biscuit sandwich. The berry compote absolutely must be put on the pancake!

Totally full, we headed over to the Whiskey Bar to watch the Jets-Cowboys game, but not before noticing this odd building with a horse’s head sticking out of it.

After going in person to five Jets games out at the Meadowlands, we decided to watch the game this year in a sports bar. A search of Yelp told us to go to the Whiskey Tavern, so we did, and I'm glad we made that decision. The place had TVs with all of the games on and they even gave out free shots at halftime.

We wrapped up our New York foodie tour with the obligatory pastrami sandwich at Katz’s Deli. It is still the biggest and best hot pastrami sandwich on rye I have ever eaten.

Ever.

Yes, there’s a wait, but it’s worth it!!!

Flew back to Midland and got home to the ranch just in time to get ready for the annual Horsehead Crossing Celebration out on the Pecos River. It was our fifth year to put it on, and the best one yet. More than 1,000 people came out to the middle of nowhere to celebrate. Quite the contrast to be in New York one day, then along the Pecos River the next.

We had a covered wagon and a stagecoach giving everyone free rides.

The stage coach not only gave everyone rides, it also took part in a “holdup” by our gunfighters, the Pecos River Gang.

The Comanche dancers and drummers from Lawton, Oklahoma were a big hit. This was their third year here.

I woke up Sunday morning completely worn out and spent the last three days just resting.

That pretty much was what we did from September 1 to October 11. I don’t think we took a break, so it’s good to just chill and do nothing!

We live pretty full lives out here, but I don’t know any other way to do it.

FINAL THOUGHTS BEFORE I SIGN OFF

I had one more thing so say about our Vaughan Brothers film.

The struggles with the music rights and the lawyers are over.

The film is out and available for just about anyone to stream.

But there are still some things that really bothered me, so I’ll get them out of my system and move on.

Jack Alday, the last surviving member of The Nightcaps meets Jimmie Vaughan at the screening of our film at the Texas Theatre in Oak Cliff, March 23, 2023. Photo by Tim Quiring

This photo above captures one of the moments I witnessed on this journey to produce this film. Jimmie talks at length in the documentary about the influence of the Dallas band, The Nightcaps, on his and Stevie’s career. Despite being a huge fan, Jimmie, had never met Jack Alday, the Nightcaps drummer and last living member of the band, until our screening at the Texas Theatre.

Those two guys had such an influence on so many southern and Texas musicians that the list would be too long to print here. With songs like “Wine, Wine, Wine” and “Thunderbird”, The Nightcaps are still getting their music out today through covers by Stevie Ray Vaughan and just about every bar band in Texas.

Jimmie’s work with The Fabulous Thunderbirds changed the face of the Texas rocking blues through songs like “Scratch My Back” “You Ain’t Nothing But Fine” and “She’s Tuff.”

Yet despite their huge presence and monster influences, neither of them owns the rights to their early songs.

It was a refrain I saw repeated nearly every time I had to get a music clearance for a song in this film. Most of the artists signed away their rights decades ago.

Now some people say, “Well, they should have gotten a lawyer to help them get a better deal,” but the truth is not so black and white. As Dave Chapelle outlined in a plea to his fans NOT to watch reruns of The Chapelle Show on Comedy Central, because “I’m not getting any money from that…..”

“I signed the contract the way a 28-year-old expectant father that was broke signs a contract,” he explained. “I was desperate and needed a way out. And it wasn’t good money and it wasn’t good circumstances but, ‘what else am I gonna do?’ I said

Lest you think this post is all whining and complaining, it’s not.

I am extremely proud of our film and revel in the good press and endorsements we’ve received from the media, celebrities and people who know their music.

This film will remain the only in-depth look at Stevie and Jimmie by the people who were “in the room where it happened”. Years from now journalists, historians and music fans will return to it to learn things that are not available in other formats. (A YouTube search will pull up tons of cheap SRV “documentaries.” Ours is better, IMO.)

It’s a sad truism that most artists die broke and unrecognized in their lifetime, so while this film will live on after I’m gone, I won’t see the financial returns I had hoped to reap.

But I say make films anyway!!!

Forgive my rambling, but it’s what an old guy with ADHD does.
A reminder that you can all enter comments on my blog, but remember that everyone will see it, so keep it clean!

Adios for now.

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We now had our film completed, and a two-night sellout at the 600-seat Texas Theatre convinced me we had an audience, so now all we had to do was get distribution.

This is where the story shifts from, “Yes we can!” to “This is hard!”

First thing the distributor (Freestyle Media) said was we needed to change the title, and the run time had to be cut down. They came up with Jimmie and Stevie Ray Vaughan, Brothers in Blues which was okay by me. I had originally named it From Nowhere as a tribute to what Lou Ann Barton said when Stevie died, “That boy came from nowhere and went everywhere.” But it wasn’t worth fighting over, so the name change was done. The editing it down was tough, because you hate to lose what you believe are great segments, but after much blood, sweat and tears, we “got r dun.”

The poster with the new title

Now came the truly horrible part about making a music documentary: Getting the music clearances.

Because the music companies no longer get anywhere near the income they once did from record, tape and CD sales, they are trying to make it up through song licensing, and they want their money. You can listen to any song you like for free on the Internet, but once you use it in a movie or commercial, they want their pound of flesh. They know you need that song, they have it, and they will make you pay for it. Like Richard Linklater said, it is as if you are working with drug dealers. (They’ve got it, they know you need it, they set the price.) Even a well-known movie director like Richard Linklater couldn’t get the music clearances for the song, “Dazed and Confused” to use in his movie, Dazed and Confused. If someone that big can’t get a song, think about what it means for an indie producer in Pecos County, Texas.

To put this all in perspective, I spent under $30K completing the entire film (crew expense, travel, meals, editing, software, light and camera rentals). I spent seven times that much getting the music clearances, paying the lawyers’ fees, and purchasing the E&O insurance (more on that later).

This is really getting deep into the weeds, so please bear with me. To use one song in a film, you must get two sets of clearances: master rights and synch rights. The master rights are the recorded song itself (like “Life By The Drop” by Stevie Ray Vaughan). The synch rights are the publishing rights, or whichever publishing house owns the songwriter rights. So you must first contact the record company (Sony) and negotiate and pay for the song, THEN you must contact the songwriter’s publishing company and get those clearances. In the case of “Life By The Drop”, it was co-written by Doyle Bramhall and Barbara Logan, and each of them was represented by a different publishing house.

So, to use “Life By the Drop”, I had to go through three rounds of negotiations, and three separate payments. That was just to use one song in the movie. Then when we wanted to use it in the trailer, we had to pay them AGAIN!

Worse yet, most of the artists no longer hold any rights to their music, masters or synch. The most heartbreaking one was Mike Rabon, the leader of the Five Americans, who signed away his rights decades ago. The other one that really hurt was T-Bone Walker. The footage we used of him performing is owned by Getty Images (as in J. Paul Getty). None of T-Bone Walker’s heirs got a penny from our licensing fee.

Now even though the Vaughan Estate owns several of Stevie’s music rights, they have licensed it to Sony Music, meaning Sony can do what it wants, but they pay a royalty to the Estate. I was trying to beat Sony down on rights, but they wouldn’t budge. Their rep even called Jimmie to complain about me, saying it he went any lower, he would “lose his job.”

So there were no free music clearances for any of the songs by Jimmie or Stevie.

And there were two songs I had in my original film that I had to yank before delivering to the distributor: “Scratch My Back” by the Thunderbirds, and “Cat People” off Bowie’s Let’s Dance LP, with Stevie playing the best guitar solo on that album.

I got the master (or recording) clearance for “Scratch My Back”, but could not get the publishing clearance because a publishing house in New York owned the song and wouldn’t drop their price.

I got the master rights for “Cat People” from Bowie’s label, but the song was written by Giorgio Moroder, and his estate would not license it to me.

Biggest help to me was Nile Rodgers who asked his publishing house to cut me a deal because he wanted to be a part of this film. I repeat, Nile Rodgers is about the coolest dude I have ever met. He just knows music and all of the greats deeply respect him.

With all of this drudgery, I spent more than two years getting the music clearances. Then you must get E&O, or “errors and omissions” insurance in case you forgot to get a clearance from someone. “Not so fast my friend” as Lee Corso says. Before you can get that policy, you must have an entertainment lawyer review every frame of your film and sign a letter stating you have all of the legal clearances, from the music to people’s name, likeness and image.

Here is page one of the final legal review of the film for all clearances. It was 21 pages long. It was a beating.

The other thing is that the music clearances all have this language: “In case of a dispute, it will be settled by the laws of California,” meaning you must use a lawyer licensed to practice law in Cal, not Texas. While there is a big Texas film industry, the business of films is still based in California.

Finally, people kept asking me that if my film boosted the sales of the artist’s music, wouldn’t the record companies give me a break?

No.

The record companies don’t make squat off of streaming music sales today, or at least not anywhere near what they used to get in the days of vinyl and CDs. Here’s the math: Back in 1978, if they sold a million copies of a vinyl LP at $7 a record, that’s a gross income of $7 million, but that would be $20 million in today’s dollars, because vinyl sells for $20 a record now. If they sell a million downloads of a streaming song at $1.99 a pop (Apple Music), that’s a gross of only $1,990,000 in today’s dollars, a difference of more than $18 million. That’s why they have to charge a big price for music rights, and they can.

The one way the record companies will give you a break is to license their songs to you for just a few years, instead of “in perpetuity” (forever). My friend Joe Nick Patoski used this approach for his documentary Sir Doug and the Genuine Texas Cosmic Groove. He got the music rights for five years. His film was up on the streaming platforms for that time, but now you can only watch it on a private Vimeo channel.

The other thing is that the record companies will not do it on a percentage of your gross. Believe me, I tried, so it is pay up or do without. It means that only people/producers with BIG money can do a music documentary. (Think Martin Scorcese and the Bob Dylan documentary.)

The craziest clearance I had to get was one for some music we used in the opening and closing of the film by Lawrence Coffee, an elderly black man selling popcorn by the side of the road near Jimmie’s house. Chase Arrington had recorded him jamming on his guitar under his little tarp near Blanco, TX.

Jimmie with Lawrence Coffee, by the side of the road near Blanco, TX. That’s Mr. Coffee you hear jamming at the beginning and the very end of our film. Chase Arrington recorded his music segment. (top photo)

I thought I had Lawrence cleared for his performance, but the lawyers said the document I used wasn’t detailed enough. So I drove back out to Blanco, Texas, met him in a parking lot, and got him to sign a new release, which he did. (Thank you, Mr. Coffee.) I also paid him for the use of his music in the film.

Getting Mr. Coffee’s signature on the release. Had I not done that, the lawyers said I would have to yank his music from the film. I drove from Fort Stockton to Blanco just for that signature, but it was worth every mile. BTW, his brother, Leon Coffee, is a famous rodeo clown who performs at the Houston Stock Show every year.

After three years and more than $200,000 in music clearance payments, lawyer fees and E&O insurance we finally had the deal done.

I submitted it to SXSW, thinking it would be a natural for them.

They rejected it.

I was stunned.

The Vaughan Brothers are closely identified with Austin, and the city even has a statue of Stevie there. Unfortunately SXSW just sent me their standard rejection notice with no explanation. I’ve seen much worse films play at SXSW, and I’ve seen films with only a bare connection to Austin get accepted, so I was totally baffled by this. Although I asked for a critique on why they didn’t take it, I didn’t get a response, except that “hundreds of films are submitted and not all are accepted,” the standard brush off.

So we set up the premiere in Austin at the Paramount Theater the day after SXSW ended.

Sold-out house.

Tons of famous folks showed up for it, such as:

Gary Clark Jr.

Charley Crockett

Kathy Valentine of the Go Gos

Executive producers, John and Cindy Wicker

Executive producer Joe Blair, and his daughter Maddie.

This was all great fun, and it’s very heady stuff to see a sold-out house at the Paramount, but next comes the part that they don’t tell you about: All marketing and promo expenses will be deducted from your share of the returns. So every time the distributor buys an ad, or promotes it on TV, you pay those costs.

It’s this way with all of them.

To keep the momentum going we went on a three-city tour of Texas theaters, Dallas, Houston and Waco. Large and adoring crowds at all of them. Despite the nearly three years of lawyer hell, I was happy that the film was finally out.

“The good” of this making the Vaughan Brothers documentary was in my previous post.

This was part two, “the bad.”

Part three will be “the ugly.”

Stay tuned.

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It was in 1977 at the Texas Chili Parlor, on Main Street in downtown Dallas. This was the ORIGINAL Texas Chili Parlor. Frank X Tolbert and his son Frank Jr. were slinging the chili in a space that was a former storefront on Main with a large window looking out onto the street, and the band set up in the corner. There was no stage. Stoney Burns took me down there because he knew both Jimmie, and Frank X Tolbert.

The poster (courtesy of Dianne Edwards)

All set up and playing in the corner of Tolbert’s Chili Parlor, with a blind hung over the window looking onto Main Street.
L-R Jimmie Vaughan, Keith Ferguson, and Kim Wilson. (Mike Buck is hidden in the back.) Photo by Dianne Edwards

I was slack jawed at the band’s unique sound and Jimmie’s incredible guitar work. At this time (1977) FM radio was filled with Journey, Foreigner, Boston, Styx and Aerosmith. The Thunderbirds didn’t sound anything like that, but they put out an incredible sound that immediately grabbed me. I didn’t know any of the songs they were playing, but they sounded GREAT and the band was incredibly tight, just playing straight through an amp with no effects or pedals. Jimmie played the guitar behind his back, behind his neck and switched between rhythm and lead so seamlessly that I kept looking for a rhythm guitarist but never found one.

I felt a lot like Jon Landau after he saw Bruce Springsteen for the first time and wrote in Rolling Stone, “I’ve seen the future of rock and roll.” I was convinced that the Fabulous Thunderbirds were going to be the next big thing and I was going to be the person to tell the world about them.

As we walked back to the car I told Stoney that I’d never seen anyone play a guitar like Jimmie Vaughan. Stoney replied, “Yes, but he’s got a younger brother who’s even better than he is.”

It took me just about a month to get to see Stevie, and I was again, slack jawed. I went to visit Stevie and then-wife Lenny at their little clapboard home in Austin and got an interview with him that we published in Buddy magazine.

I may be wrong, but I think this is the first interview with Stevie ever published. (Someone out there will correct me, I’m sure.)

From then on I covered both Vaughan Brothers in Buddy and saw them play dozens of times, from Soap Creek Saloon, Steamboat Springs and Club Foot in Austin to the Agora, Faces, Mother Blues and Sneaky Pete’s in Dallas. Whenever they came to Big D, I was in the audience and writing about them. I even predicted that the T-Birds would soon take over the world, while pushing a free concert with Stevie and Double Trouble in the same issue. (Note that we misspelled Stevie’s last name!)

Giving the Vaughan Brothers exposure in the same issue of Buddy.

For me it wasn’t a matter of if the Vaughan brothers would hit it big, it was when. Writing for Buddy I got to see every famous guitar player in concert back then — Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Mick Ronson, Robin Trower — and the Vaughan brothers could play everything those guys played but behind their back or behind their neck. They were/are simply the best guitar players I have ever seen live.

I was also lucky enough to get tons of photos of them while they were still playing small (and somewhat dumpy) clubs in Texas.

Top photo: Jimmie tuning up at the Palladium. Stevie playing a free show at Lee Park.

When they both finally got signed to major record deals, I was ecstatic. Their earliest albums were filled with the songs I had heard them playing in the clubs, so I believed I was “there at the creation.”

Then it all came to an abrupt end.

Stevie died in a tragic helicopter crash after playing a show with Jimmie, Eric Clapton and Robert Cray at a festival in Alpine Valley, Wisconsin. It all came to halt “in a New York minute.”

Stevie, tuning up before taking the stage at Farm Aid at Manor Downs near Austin.

Because I had already produced three documentary films I wanted to do one on Stevie, but through the viewpoint of him being Jimmie’s younger brother. Not because I knew more about Stevie than anyone else (that would be Craig Hopkins) but because I had watched both he and Jimmie go from little clubs to huge arenas and wanted to tell exactly what I saw. The best biography about Stevie is Joe Nick Patoski’s and Bill Crawford’s Caught in the Crossfire, but even they couldn’t get Jimmie’s cooperation on it. I thought that the Vaughan brother’s story was one of the most incredible I had ever witnessed, going from a cracker-box house in Oak Cliff to Carnegie Hall and the world stage. I also thought you could not tell Stevie’s story without including Jimmie, because Jimmie was the person Stevie idolized and the person who taught him how to play his first song on the guitar “The Wham” by Lonnie Mack.

I also noticed that of the handful of docs made about Stevie (only one is legitimate IMO), none of them had the full cooperation of Jimmie, nor on-camera interviews with him and Eric Clapton, the two people who were with Stevie on the night he died.

I rang up Randle Bird and Chase Arrington, the guys who helped me get When Dallas Rocked completed (click the hyperlink to watch it on YouTube) and asked if they wanted to get in on this one. They both agreed so we were in business.

Our first interview was with Billy Gibbons, the afternoon before he and ZZ Top were set to play a concert at Midland’s Horseshoe Arena. We met Billy backstage and he couldn’t have been nicer. He even had several stories about the Vaughan brothers that I didn’t know, such as the time he and Jimmie played The Catacombs club in Houston back when Jimmie was only 15, and attending Stevie’s wedding to Lenny Bailey at the Rome Inn down in Austin. He even took off his trademark sunglasses for the interview.

Chase Arrington and Randle Bird with Billy Gibbons after our interview.

I have met Billy several times back in the 70s when I was writing for Buddy magazine. He was always cordial, but when I’m asked if he remembered me, I have to say I doubt it. Back in those days he met SO MANY people after the ZZ Top shows that I don’t see how he could recall one person from the hangers on and wannabes that flocked to the shows.

Me with Billy Gibbons and Warner Bros records promo man Jerry Barrett, backstage in Jackson, MS, 1978.

From there we drove down to Jimmie Vaughan’s home near Dripping Springs. He has a beautiful place, up on a hilltop in the heart of the Hill Country with a creek you have to drive across to get to the main house.

I had interviewed Jimmie on numerous occasions when I was at Buddy, and he was always nice to me, if a bit reserved. He was never a big talker, but would always say something funny, but in a very dry manner.

My first interview with Jimmie, back in 1978. I misspelled his last name throughout it.

I had a list of questions that I read from, and was somewhat surprised at how forthcoming Jimmie was in his answers, particularly when I asked him to walk me through the night Stevie died in the helicopter crash. It had to be tough for him to recount that on-camera for the first time (that I am aware of) but he was surprisingly candid and a bit emotional.

After we were done, he posed with Chase, Randel and myself.

Hanging out at Jimmies’s house. L-R, Randle Bird, Jimmie, myself, and Chase Arrington.

Now it was time to interview two other people who were close to the Vaughan brothers, Eric Clapton and Jackson Browne. As luck would have it, Clapton was playing a show at the LA Forum, so we wouldn’t have to fly to England. Also, Jackson Browne would be in the Santa Monica area the same time. I got a schedule worked out with each one’s management, so Chase, Randle, Joe Blair and myself boarded a Southwest flight for Los Angeles, booked a room in the luxurious La Quinta and set up a rental Suburban. (Because he used to live in LA, Joe was our designated driver.)

Clapton was staying at the Casa Del Mar, so we set up a time to meet with him in one of the conference rooms. We met his road manager, Nigel, and soon Eric came in.

Eric Clapton with Chase Arrington and Joe Blair, in a conference room at the Casa Del Mar.

Like Billy Gibbons, I had met Eric nearly 50 years earlier when he played a show in Dallas and I interviewed him in his hotel room, the Anatole. And, like Gibbons, I doubt if he remembers me, but he couldn’t have been nicer. Answered all of my questions with real emotion and was surprisingly forthcoming. I got the feeling he had been wanting to talk about Stevie’s passing all of these years.

Eric in the Anatole Hotel, Dallas, Texas, 1979 with some Buddy magazines I brought.

I have to say that when he told us about that last concert at Alpine Valley and doing the show with Stevie, I kept telling myself, “Don’t interrupt him!!!” It was probably the best part of the documentary.

After we finished, we were packing up our lights, camera and booms, when Eric asked if we were going to the show that night at The Forum. I said, no. Then he turned to his road manager and said, “Nigel, set them up with some tickets.” We all four were given VIP access, along with passes to The Forum Club. I was bowled over by his generosity.

Making it a full day, we dashed across town to Jackson Browne’s studio to shoot our interview with him. This had great significance because it was the very same studio where Stevie and Double Trouble recorded their first album, Texas Flood. We had to wait a few minutes because Jackson was rehearsing, but soon he came into a small office and sat down to talk with us.

I sound like a broken record, but he, too, was extremely kind and open, answering everything I asked, particularly about how Stevie came to record his LP there, and the gift he gave Jackson when the session was done. (You’ll have to watch the film to see it!!!) I don’t know if everyone we spoke to was glad to finally get all of this out there, but I was amazed at what we had gathered. Jackson was kind enough to pose with us for a quick photo.

Me, Jackson Browne, Joe, Chase and Randel

Our LA shoot now finished, we grabbed dinner and got ready for the Clapton show that evening at the Forum. This is one of the legendary rock and roll venues, and it being LA, they’ve got a private club behind the velvet rope. But we had “Guest of the artist” passes!!!

The entrance.

Once inside, they had a full buffet and cocktail bar. I felt like we were indeed in high cotton.

Yes, there’s a club inside The Forum!

Concert was incredible. Jimmie opened up for Eric, then Clapton came out and blew everyone away. I’m still having a hard time wrapping my head around the great times we had, but we accomplished our goals and got some incredible footage for the doc.

Once back in Dallas I had one more “must have” on my interview list and that was Nile Rodgers. Click the hyperlink on his name for more on this dude, but he is an incredible producer who not only did David Bowie’s Let’s Dance (with SRV on the guitar!) but produced the last recordings Stevie made on the LP Family Style with brother Jimmie.

Pic of Bowie, Stevie and Nile during the Let’s Dance sessions.

If there is anyone cooler than Nile Rodgers, I haven’t met them, yet.

The dude has written so many incredible songs (“We Are Family”, “Le Freak”, “Tick Tock” to name a few) and worked with so many top stars (Bowie, Keith Urban) that I am in awe.

He told us some great stories. We interviewed him at the Stoneleigh Hotel in Dallas before he took the stage that night at the American Airlines Center.

This story he told us didn’t make the final cut of the film, but it is so cool I just have to drop it in here.

Nile talks about the Vaughan Brothers as only he can.

We now had all of our celebrity interviews shot. Several people have asked, “How did you get Eric Clapton, Jackson Browne, Billy Gibbons and Nile Rodgers to speak with you on-camera?”

Jimmie Vaughan.

I contacted each artist’s management and they, in turn, called Jimmie. He told them, “This guy’s okay. Go ahead and speak with him.”

None of these interviews would have happened without Jimmie. He is that respected among the rock royalty.

I edited the film with Chase Arrington and Sandy Schwartz as co-editors. We did this all remotely using Adobe Premiere. It allows you to share a project online so I could do my edits, then turn it over to Chase and Sandy to sweeten it up. They made it better.

Now I had to find out if this film was as good as I thought it was. You can sit in your living room and think you’re great, but sooner or later you gotta take your show on the road. Barak Epstein at the Texas Theatre in Oak Cliff (where they caught Lee Harvey Oswald) agreed to let us show it there. We sold out the 600-seat movie house immediately and added a second night. Got this great shout out on KDFW TV’s “Good Morning Texas” show that sold out the second night completely!!!

Jimmie and his family drove up from Dripping Springs to be at the screening. It turned out better than I thought it would. I knew now we had a great documentary.

Sold out! And Jimmie thrilled the crowd with his comments afterwards.

The film was done. We knew it had an audience, now came the hard part: getting the music clearances and finding a distributor.

Making the film was the fun part. The business side of it was a long, hard slog.

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And if you want to see my film, for FREE on YouTube (with ads of course) just click the link at the bottom.

Part two (the bad) to come.

We had our three-year-old granddaughter, Caroline, who loved to visit us at the ranch, so I thought this would be the perfect horse for her. I jumped at the chance and soon Sunny joined us.

Sunny, chowing down in the old corral shortly after her arrival.

Caroline got on her during her next visit, and the love affair began. She LOVED that horse, and I’m pretty certain Sunny loved her because she always came up to the gate whenever Caroline visited.

A girl and her horse.

When she first started riding, her legs were too short to reach the stirrups, but I put her in the saddle and she held on as best as she could.

Riding the range!

And she would always give Sunny a good curry comb brushing after each ride.

Always good to get brushed down after a ride.

About the only problem Sunny ever caused was whenever I forgot to lock the corral gate, she would get out, then go around to eat the bird feed I kept on the front porch.

I kept bird feed in a large can that she would immediately knock over.

I soon got some smaller stirrups that fit over the saddle horn, so she could get her feet into them, and we would ride together.

Does this horse make me look fat?

And she really enjoyed riding with her aunt Hallie.

A horseback selfie.

Things went along like that for nearly six years. But eventually Sunny turned 30, and started slowing down. By now Caroline had grown enough to where her feet reached the stirrups so we ditched the “shorty” ones.

And she had grown pretty attached to Sunny.

My grandfather had two horses that lived until they were 32: Silver and Apache. Therefore I thought that Sunny may have a few more years left in her. I started buying her “senior horse feed” at Tractor Supply in hopes it might perk her up. It didn’t, but she still loved alfalfa hay, so I switched back to that.

Sunny even withstood the “big freeze” when all the power went out across Texas.

Frost on her mane and sides!!!

By last month, she was getting pretty shaky. I called my close friend Houston McKenzie and asked him what to do. He told me that as long as Sunny could get up on her own and was still eating to wait.

“I’ve had to put down two horses in my lifetime, and I’m here to tell you it’s terrible. It’s about the worst thing you’ll have to do. Put if off for as long as you can,” he told me.

I had read about an old cowboy who loved his horse so much that he kept it until it could no longer stand, and fed it mush because it had lost its teeth. This was a story that J. Frank Dobie told in his excellent book, The Mustangs. The cowboy and that horse had been through so much that he just couldn’t bear to put it down, but one day it was pretty much done for him when the stall he was keeping the horse in collapsed and broke its neck.

I kept hoping that something like that would happen.

My grandfather lost Silver when one day he wrote us a letter and said he found him dead out in the pasture. This was back in the 1960s, when I was still a boy. Silver was 32 years old and had been a great horse, so I’m glad my grandad didn’t have to put him down.

My grandfather on Silver (top photo), and my brother Miles riding him back in the 1960s.

Alas, I wasn’t going to be so lucky.

About a month ago I went out to the corral and Sunny was lying there, unable to get up. Diann came out and whistled (which is her way of calling the horses in to be fed) and the mare valiantly struggled to her feet one more time, but her legs were shaking.

She could barely stand.

I knew then that it was time.

Houston had told me to make an X from each eye, across her forehead, to the ear and to use a large-calibre handgun.

By now a strange sense of calm had overcome me, because I knew this had to be done.

It was over quickly. She didn’t suffer.

That mare was a great horse to Caroline, and brought us a lot of joy. We gave her a good “retirement” and I know we did all that we could do to keep her comfortable.

This last photo of her in the corral, with the rising sun behind her, is the way I like to remember Miss Sonita Delight.

The only shortcoming with your animals is that you always outlive them.

Vaya con dios, Sunny, you good and faithful servant.

(If you like my writing, please consider becoming a paying subscriber. I promise that not every entry will be this sad.)

Adios.

But he didn’t.

And one day he dropped it into the water on Lake Travis (after he got transferred to Austin) and we began to sail on it. He named it Halcyon.

Halcyon on Lake Travis

Besides its wooden decks and hatches, it had a wooden mast that we had to refinish every few years.

Stripping down the the mast so we can varnish it.

He sold Halcyon, and got his next boat, Caper a 35-foot, Sparkman & Steven’s, which he also moored at Lake Travis.

Dave’s second sailboat, Caper.

About five years ago, Dave and his wife, Karen, moved to Seattle. It would cost a fortune to trailer Caper from Austin to Seattle, so he sold it. But now he was living right on the water, on Puget Sound, and for the first time since I have known him, Dave didn't have a boat.

It almost seemed criminal.

A few months ago he said he was in the hunt for one and that a sailboat broker had a good one lined up. However, the deal fell through. Diann suggested he try to find one on Craigslist. At first he scoffed at it, thinking no decent sailboat would be sold over the Internet version of The Greensheet. But he gave it a search, and lo and behold, he found an affordable one nearby!

Two weeks ago he invited me to come for the first “shakedown cruise.” The plan was to go out into the Sound for a few days and see if everything worked. I jumped at the chance and caught a flight from Midland to Seattle.

I had never been to the West Coast except for LA. (and I don’t mean Louisiana). It would also be my first trip to the Pacific Northwest. The only thing I knew about Seattle was that the TV shows Here Come the Brides, Fraiser and Grey’s Anatomy all took place in that city. (Click the links for the theme songs!) So everything would be a “first time” for me.

I have to say I had an incredible time. The first thing I noticed were the low temperatures—in the 51-53 degree range—with highs of only 73. For a west Texan, that’s like living in an open, air-conditioned mall, but without the Sunglass Huts. There also is an endless array of neat little cafes and retail shops all over the place. Like this record store in West Seattle.

Easy Street record store. Very cool place. Lots of rock memorabilia as well as a huge selection of vinyl.

From there it was on to the Space Needle, an iconic structure that has been a huge draw since 1962.

Elvis starred in It Happened at the World’s Fair with ten-year-old child actor Kurt Russell. As this display tells you, the Space Needle figured prominently in the movie.

From there it was on to the boat.

Dave had it moored up in nearby Everett, so we packed up our clothes and enough food for three days and headed that way.

From the dock, the new sailboat looked great!!!

It was already named “Sounder” which seems most appropriate.

And it was really nice and comfortable below decks.

But the BEST thing about it was it had an electric, flushing toilet (I know, you are supposed to call it a “head” on a boat.)

If you have ever been on a live-aboard sailboat, you’ve probably endured the two pumps and valves that you must open, pump in water, close the valve, open the OTHER pump valve, pump OUT the water (with your fecal waste in it) then close that valve. If you leave a valve open, water will come in, overflow the head/toilet, and you can sink your boat. This electric/flush feature eliminates all of that!!!

Before we could set sail we had two things we had to fix in the harbor:

• A propane leak to the stove.

• Get some water out of the diesel fuel tank.

We bought a fuel additive that was SUPPOSED to get the water out, then added 15 gallons of diesel fuel, which we carried down to the mooring in three, five-gallon fuel cans. Then we pulled out the propane hose and tightened all of the connections.

You REALLY do not want a propane leak below decks. It could kill you!!!

Feeling good about ourselves we pushed off from Everett to set sail for Langley, a tiny village on Widby Island.

We were located behind Jetty Island, at the spot marked MFP, and sailed to the MP spot by Langley.

Right away we noticed that there was absolutely no wind, so we had to motor, using the diesel engine.

Captain Dave at the helm of Sounder.

Kept our fingers crossed that the water in the tank wouldn’t be an issue, but the engine purred like a kitten the entire time.

I’ve seen glassy-smooth water on Texas lakes, but never on a body of salt water. It was both beautiful and a bit eerie.

Like glass on Puget Sound!

Now if this were Texas, you would see a million ski boats out there, but I never saw a single one, either on Puget Sound, or in the harbor the entire time I was there. The reason is that the water temperature was 53 degrees!!! You would have to ski in a dry suit with a sweater underneath.

Took about four and a half hours to motor over to the dock at Langley. If you don’t have a slip, or buoy there, you have to anchor your boat, then go ashore in a dingy, or inflatable. Dave had just purchased a used dingy for this express purpose. Now the challenge of stepping down into a TINY boat from a sailboat is that your first step MUST be in the dead center of the dingy, or else you will immediately capsize . I got in gingerly, then Dave asked me to move to the back (stern) so he could get in. I did so, and immediately water started rushing in over the stern. I moved forward, but my butt was soaking wet and we now had water in the bottom of the dingy which meant that our feet would get wet. We bailed it out as best we could, then Dave rowed us ashore.

The dingy awaits us. And it is SMALL!!!

Captain Dave mans the oars.

Once we got to the harbor we had to walk up a path to the village of Langley, which is only accessible by boat, ferry or a bridge they constructed a few years ago at the far north end of Widby Island. It’s an interesting little village that started out as timber and fishery spot, but is now strictly based on tourism.

“Downtown” Langley. There is ONE grocery store, and it is small.

Because I slept too cold on the boat the first night I purchased a blanket. We had a few beers at the pub, then headed back down the hill to the harbor and our waiting dingy. I asked Dave to let me row back out to the boat, which I did, but I was totally unprepared for the current and nearly missed the boat! Had I done so I would have had to row AGAINST the current to get back, and I don’t know if I could have pulled that off. Somehow we made it, and Dave started prepping us a great meal down below. But before we could eat, some “neighbors” on another anchored sailboat motored over in their inflatable to say “hello” and compliment Dave on how good his boat looked.

Sailboat people are a different breed than the motor boaters. They are a specialized fraternity.

I also wanted to try and catch some salmon, so I watched a YouTube video on how to fish in Puget Sound, and invested in all of the gear it recommended. Feeling confident, I set up my trolling rig on Dave’s sailboat, using a PVC pipe and some hose clamps from O’Reilly Auto Parts.

Ready to reel in some dinner!

Alas, during my entire time trolling as we motored along I did not get a single strike. But that’s fishing.

After three days on the water we headed back in, passing this seal on one of the buoys. (You really don’t see that in Texas.)

There were seals all around the harbor, but I could never get one to hold still long enough for a photo, so I snapped this fella as we passed him by.

I mentioned the total lack of ski boats, but that was more than made up by plethora of large and classic Chris Craft cabin cruisers we saw.

Bear in mind that these are wooden boats!

We spent the last day in Seattle checking out the fish market and the walkable neighborhood where Dave and Karen live.

They even marked the barstool at the Athenian Lunch where Tom Hanks sat when he filmed Sleepless in Seattle here.

I also found the handbills posted on all of the lamp poles somewhat amusing.

It was now time for the lllloooonnggg flight back to Midland from Seattle. Because there is no direct flight, I had to first fly to Houston, sit through a three-hour layover, then fly to Midland, get my car from long-term parking and make the hour-and-a-half drive back to the ranch. It wore me out.

For starters, the line to pass through the TSA screening checkpoint was just ridiculous.

No one was “sleepless in Seattle” trying to leave!

I got home and slept the sleep of the dead. Air travel is so stressful nowadays, not like when I was younger and it was somewhat glamorous.

I woke up in time to head to the Annie Riggs Museum to enjoy a Summer Off the Patio performance by Righteous Intonation and a cold Modelo beer. It was a great trip to see some new country, but good to get home to no traffic and plenty of free parking!

Righteous Intonation lays down some bluegrass-inspired C&W.

I’m very blessed to get to travel, but as Dorothy said in The Wizard of Oz, “There’s no place like home.”

Quite the contrast to Puget Sound, but I like it.

Hope you enjoyed my little travelog. If you do, or if you enjoy some of my other ramblings, please consider becoming a paying subscriber so I can keep doing this. Will return with more musings and observations from west of the Pecos soon.

Until then, adios!

The poster for the Ma Blues Reunion. I made the cut!

Last weekend I was invited to MC the Mother Blues Reunion at the Kessler Theater in Dallas. For those of you who don’t know, Mother Blues was a legendary nightclub in Big D from 1970-1982. It would take up this entire post just to tell you about that club, so for a deep dive on it, read the story about Ma Blues I wrote for Buddy magazine here. (Be forewarned that it is an unvarnished memoir of one of the craziest places I’ve ever visited.)

Jeff Liles at the Kessler had set up a “reunion” of sorts for patrons and employees of Mother Blues. About a month ago he reached out to me, mainly because I’m the last man standing among the “insiders” who once partied at the place with Bill Simonson and a host of rock and rollers, groupies, drug dealers and hangers on. I got my thoughts together, and Diann and I drove in from the ranch for the weekend.

Friday morning I was a guest on KDFW’s “Good Day” program.

Co-host Brandon Todd interviewed me in this segment that aired at 7:50 am. https://www.fox4news.com/video/1657643

The other co-host is Lauren Pryzybyl, a fellow Baylor grad. She graciously allowed me a photo with her in our best “Sic ‘em, Bears” cheer.

It’s still cool to go onto a live TV set.

With so many podcasts and Tik Tok videos out there I still enjoy the energy of a live television studio where you know you have thousands of viewers watching you live, “out there”

Everyone on the set was overly kind.

After a lunch and a nap, it was on to the show.

As David Allan Coe once sang, “Well, I've seen my name few times in your phone book,
”And I've seen it on signs where I've played”

The marquee at the Kessler

The place was packed. So many people came up and talked to me that I cannot recall all of them, but one that stood out was the girl in this photo with Billy Joel taken back in 1977.

Stoney’s date, with Billy Joel, backstage at KZEW’s free Rocktober concert in Fort Worth, 1977.

I had used that pic in my film, When Dallas Rocked. She told me that she first saw it when the film came out nine years ago and had an “OMG that’s me!” moment.

For more than 45 years I had absolutely no idea who the girl in that photo was, but she walked up to me at the Kessler Theater and said that she had been wanting to contact me for a long time to let me know that’s her!

Found out her name is Lori Braunstein and she was dating Stoney when that photo was shot.

With that mystery cleared up, I took the stage around 8:00 pm to deliver a brief monologue on Mother Blues, or rather what I remember about it, and why that club will never be re-created.

The following photo pretty much demonstrates just how unique (and that’s a way over-used term) this place was.

Onstage at Mother Blues, 1975. Photo by the late, great Ron McKeown

Let’s break this photo down. (L-R) Billy Swan had a million-selling hit with “I Can Help.” That’s him on the far left. Then we have Margaret Elsdridge a record label employee, Buddy photographer Jesus Carrillo, then Stephen Bruton, who you might recall co-wrote the music with T-Bone Burnet for the Jeff Bridges movie, Crazy Heart. (That film won a best-actor Academy Award for Bridges in 2009.)

After that we have Ray Wylie Hubbard, writer of ‘Up Against the Wall Redneck Mother,” and “Mother Blues” a paen to the old club,

Check out Ray Wylie’s “Mother Blues” here:

Finally, there is Stoney Burns, the publisher of Buddy magazine and my boss for eight years. A legend in Dallas during the 60s and 70s.

To put that earlier photo all in perspective, on that stage at that moment in 1975, you have a million-selling artist, performing with an Oscar winning musician, singing with a guy who wrote two “forever” songs and the man who single-handedly reduced the penalty for marijuana possession in Texas from a felony to a misdemeanor .

I had hoped that some of the girls and groupies who used to hang at Ma Blues would be there, but alas many of them have passed on. The one I saw the most was Audrey Hamilton. She was at nearly every big show in Dallas in the 70s. Here she is backstage with Roger Fossen of Heart at the very first Texxas Jam at the Cotton Bowl.

Audrey with Steve backstage.

But she got her biggest claim to fame by hooking up with Robert Plant, who she met at Mother Blues (!!!), and then going on tour with him and Led Zeppelin on their private jet.

On the Zeppelin private plane with Robert Plant.

Robert Plant and Audrey somewhere near Dallas.

Sadly Audrey passed away about a year ago, so she wasn’t there to regale the crowd with her stories. Would have been pretty to think so. She got a mention on this blog, but they (erroneously) said that she met up with Plant at “a blues club.” It was Mother Blues. They had blues there, and it was a club, but it was not a “blues club.”

That left it up to me, so I did as best I could from the viewpoint of a guy who was “in the room” but didn’t get to go into the inner sanctum to see “what happened.” I freely admitted that Bugs Henderson, Ron McKeown and Stoney Burns should have MC’d this thing, but they are all gone!

My opening, paying tribute to Bugs, Ron and Stoney.

After about a 15-minute monologue, I turned it over to Jimmy Wallace, Rocky Athas and Jim Suhler, the guys who used to play at the old Mother Blues. I had requested that Jimmy do a song I used to hear him play with his old band Lynx, Robin Trower’s “Too Rolling Stoned (Think I Better Sit This One Out)”

They did it, and crushed it!!! (Thank you, Jimmy.)

Not to be outdone, Rocky Athas (with his son on bass) did Freddy King’s “Palace of the King”

The whole crowd was made up of people like me: aging Baby Boomers. As my daughter, Hallie, remarked, “I skewed the demographics by 30 years just by showing up.”

I really missed seeing Vicki Wade there. She was just not well enough to attend. Vicki was a waitress at Mother Blues, who posed for this ad in Buddy many years ago.

Stoney shot this iconic ad for Mother Blues that was turned into a poster.

Another waitress who couldn’t make it was Carolyne Scott Naile. She passed away from cancer a year ago. John Gasperik, a Ma Blues regular, showed up, but he didn’t feel well enough to go up onstage.

Like I said, there will never be another club like that mainly because the drinking age is now 21 (not 18 like back in the day) and things are so much more expensive now. Most of the young people (like me) back in 1977 enjoyed cheap rent, cheap gas and cheap groceries. We had enough extra dough to go out clubbing, plus drinks were also a lot cheaper!!! (The two-for-one happy hours didn’t hurt.)

After we shut down the Kessler, it was on to the Texas Theatre for a matinee screening of When Dallas Rocked. If you have never seen this rockumentary, I’ve put it up on YouTube so you can see that Dallas did indeed once serve as the center of music in the entire southwest before the scene shifted to Austin.

Yes, I met Elvis Costello when he was a young man!!!

We asked folks to wear old t-shirts, and this guy had a KZEW shirt that he said John Rody gave to him when he (the guy, not Rody) was 15 years old!!!

That logo once ruled the airwaves.

Had a good, and appreciative, crowd at the Texas. I enjoyed every minute of it. Big thanks to Barak Epstein and his crew for entertaining us.

Once it was all over we got some needed rest, then met two of our three kids for a Father’s Day breakfast on Sunday with our friends, the Blairs.

Drove back to the ranch after breakfast. Every mile was there.

I think what I miss most about “the old days” are so many of the friends I had who are now gone. It’s the curse of growing older.
Once again, I have no idea why God has let me live this long.

Let me close with yet another pitch to become a paying subscriber to this blog. It helps keep the lights on.

Adios until the next one.

Diann promptly volunteered to host a family reunion at the ranch.

At first we had several takers, but as we got closer to the actual date (Memorial Day weekend) the list dwindled to Dale’s two adult children, Brian and Heather. We decided to forge ahead and throw the party anyway, and I’m very glad we did.

Brian, his daughter Zoey, and Heather’s husband, Stacy, had never been to Texas west of the Pecos. Heather came here once, back when she was a kid. They ALL wanted to head down to Big Bend and visit the border town of Boquillas.

I have been going to Big Bend since I was a ten-year-old boy, when my family camped up in the Chisos Basin way back in 1962.

PLENTY of camp sites available back in 1962! Big Bend was still undiscovered in the era before Instagram. Dig the fins on our old Chrysler, and the old school tent. Canvas!

Of course we were given a good sendoff by my late uncle, B.H. Warnock, son Tony and wife Ruel, before we headed south. B.H. (as the family called him) was one of the early visitors to the park, before it ever opened. He was a grad student helping Ross Maxwell catalog all of the plants in the Park.

A Warnock family confab! L-R Tony, Ruel, BH, grandmother Marie, my mom, Kathleen, and me with my grandparents dog, Ringo, outside the ranch house in Fort Stockton before we headed south, to Big Bend.

I first went to Boquillas while a college student at Baylor. I was at the ranch with my family for Christmas, when my brother, Miles, and I decided to head down there. We had heard about it from my father, Frank, and my grandfather, Roland, who made his first visit there back in 1919. He rode horseback from Fort Stockton to Boquillas (a distance of 153 miles) with his two uncles, Arch and Lige Warnock.

Grandfather Roland, with his horse, Bronk, in Pecos County back in 1919.

It was quite a trip! I captured a recording of him talking about it back in 1973 when I was a student in the oral history program at Baylor. I got the old reel-to-reel recording digitized, and am posting it here so you can listen to him tell it in his voice. Remember that this trip to Boquillas took place during Prohibition. (Bear with the opening.)

Over the years we would head over to Boquillas whenever we visited Big Bend. Diann and I crossed over there right after we were married in 1987.

You simply have to ride the Boquillas taxi whenever you go. Diann, circa 1987.

My parents (Frank and Kathleen) and their close friends Peggy and Alpheus Harral, and John and Iva Aline Collins, all rode the donkeys up to the little village back in 1978. This is how safe it was, and still is, with a few exceptions.

L-R: My dad and mom, Frank and Kathleen Warnock, Peggy Harral, Iva Aline Collins, Alpheus Harral and John Collins back in 1978. (I think dad got the shortest burro.)

Until the 9/11 attacks, you could just walk up to the riverbank, a boatman would see you and row over, you got your donkeys and headed to the bar! That all changed after the attacks on the Twin Towers. The U.S. Customs and Immigration set up a post along the river, and you now need a passport to cross over, way out here, in the middle of nowhere. (Thanks, bin Laden.)

Armed with our passports and some cash, we left the ranch Monday morning with Brian, Zoey, Heather, Stacy and Diann to head south for Mexico. What a lot of people don’t understand is that once you turn south from Fort Stockton on Hwy 385, there is NOTHING, save for the small village of Marathon about 57 miles away, so if you want a Starbucks coffee or a breakfast burrito, you are SOL.

No pulling over for an Egg McMuffin here!!!

The vast distances between any type of civilization (gas, groceries, etc.) and the open spaces are almost overwhelming to visitors from the east. Poor Heather said she wanted to “get cold drink” after we left Big Bend National Park, but the next place that had one was Marathon — 70 miles away!!!

The other thing that people who don’t live out here fail to grasp is that there has been a steady back-and-forth across the Rio Grande by the Hispanics for centuries, and they have had a presence out here going back for more than 300 years. The best example came to mind when Brian, Heather and Zoey went to the Hot Springs. This place was purchased, site unseen, by J. O. Langford back in 1909. He traveled there from Mississippi, his home state, and laid eyes on the Chisos Mountains for the first time in his life. When he arrived at the Hot Springs, he found a Mexican family already living there. Writing in his autobiography, A Homesteader’s Story, Langford said that he didn’t ask them to leave, but let them stay.

That’s pretty much the story out here. There have been Mexican-American’s living here for centuries.

Back to that first visit to BBNP back in 1962. After camping in our wall tent, my parents took Miles and I on a hike to The Window.

My brother Miles, and myself, hiking to The Window, 1962.

This time we hiked with Di’s cousins.

On the trail with our Kansas relatives.

If you have ever hiked The Window then you know that it is all downhill to the turnaround, then all uphill on the return. On my first trip as a kid, Miles and I got exhausted on the uphill return, and took a break with my dad. My mom snapped this photo.

Three tired hikers, 1962.

On this return, some 63 years later, I found the same rock and re-enacted Miles’ nap on it.

Poor thing!

The hiking done, we made a return trip the next day to hit Boquillas and the Hot Springs. This time Di skipped the donkey ride because as she said, “Been there, done that.” She and I opted for a truck to take us up to the village, while Brian, Heather, Stacy and Zoey mounted up.

We were wondering how we would get our ass across the border!

The little village of Boquillas remains a remote outpost in northern Mexico. It is so far away from the nearest Mexican city of any size, that most Boquillas residents have PO boxes over in Lajitas because the mail service is more reliable on the US side.

It’s like a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western over here.

We had an excellent lunch of cabrito tacos, then I made it over to the Park Bar for a quick libation. This has ALWAYS been a stop for me. I celebrated by 30th and 70th birthdays here, and have returned many times in the interim. My daughter, Hallie, even made it here on my instructions.

We are now the third and fourth generations of the Warnock clan to tip one at this historic watering hole across the Rio Grande.

Suitably refreshed, we got a souvenir t-shirt, then headed out to enjoy the Hot Springs back in Big Bend National Park.

You can’t say they don’t have a sense of humor!

The Hot Springs are a must for any trip to BBNP. They are said to have healing powers, so much so that the Native Americans came here to bathe in them hundreds of years ago.

Cousin Brian and daughter Zoey, climb into the mineral waters.

Here’s how they look with the Rio Grande in the background. That’s Mexico on the other side!

Our adventure came to an end as we got in the car and headed back to the ranch. This was entirely different country for our visitors. They come from a much more lush and watered country than us.

Heather and Stacy’s backyard near Leavenworth, KS.

But each place has its own charm and attractions. As the late Sly Stone wrote, “Different strokes for different folks.”

I am hoping that they will make a return visit, and we didn’t scare them off.

If you enjoy my blog, please consider becoming a paying subscriber.

Until next time, adios!

I received a reminder of that last Friday.

Mario Rodriguez serves on the Pecos County Historical Commission with me. For the past few meetings he has been telling us of two cemeteries near Buena Vista and Girvin that he has been cleaning up. He brought a few photo prints, but in this open country it’s hard to get a sense of place from a tightly cropped paper image.

Last Friday Mario and I went out to these cemeteries to register them for the Texas Historic Cemetery designation. Armed with a print out of the requirements and a good digital camera, I picked him up and we drove out to the first one, the Buena Vista cemetery.

Buena Vista was a little community north of Fort Stockton, located somewhere between Imperial and Girvin. The town was long gone before I was born, but at one time it had a small downtown with a bank, post office and school. The first telephone my grandparents had out at the ranch was an old hand-crank phone that they told me came from the bank in Buena Vista. Today there is nothing there.

To say that this cemetery was “hidden” would be doing it a disservice. If Mario had not been there to direct me I never would have found it. I won’t drop the exact pin, but it is out here, somewhere between Imperial and Girvin.

A Google Earth look at the country between Imperial and Girvin. You don’t go past here on your way to anywhere. There is nothing.

The first hurdle is that the cemetery is not on a paved highway, but off a caliche road. And you have to make two correct turns or you’ll just get lost in the mesquite.

There’s a cemetery out there, somewhere.

The other hurdle is that because the headstones are shorter than the surrounding mesquites, you could pass within 50 feet of it and miss it. But after following Mario’s directions we pulled up to the front gate.

Even though there is no sign on it, this is what remains of the Buena Vista Cemetery,

The little cemetery was filled with Hispanic (Mexican) graves, no Anglos. These were the workers who labored on the farms here in the early 1900s, primarily raising melons or cotton for Anglo farmers. The Mexicans had already been here for nearly 300 years before the Anglos showed up, and the Spaniards for 400 years. Spanish Conquistador Cabeza de Vaca was in Pecos County Texas sometime between 1528-1537, while Juan Dominguez Mendoza came here in 1683. To put that in perspective, Mendoza was here 93 years before the Declaration of Independence was signed while Cabeza de Vaca came to present-day Fort Stockton 77 years before Jamestown was founded. Unfortunately much of Texas history starts with the Texas Revolution in 1836. A few events before 1836 are included, with some mentions of La Salle and Alonso De León, but the bulk of Texas history is Anglo history, starting with Stephen F. Austin and his colonization of the Lone Star State.

The reasons for this are not as sinister as some would lead you to believe. The marjority of Mexican/Hispanic history is kept through an oral tradition, but we historians have a saying, “It’s not history until it’s written down.” The Anglos were very good at keeping a written history, mainly through official documents and newspapers, while Hispanics didn’t place a premium on the written word, save for birth and baptismal records that may have been kept by the local Catholic diocese.

Today the Mexican/Spanish influence remains in Texas, with Hispanics making up 71% of Pecos County’s population. So focusing on Hispanic history isn’t about being “woke”, it’s just a fact when that’s the makeup of the majority of your county.

Sadly, one day in the 1950s Buena Vista failed as a farming community, its buildings fell into disrepair, it was slowly gobbled up by the mesquites and disappeared. But the little Hispanic cemetery remained, carrying the history of the people who once lived and worked here.

This was one of my favorites.

A headstone with a tile mosaic.

Then there was this pair of crypts.

They must have been fairly well-to-do to have graves like this.

With few exceptions, the majority of the people buried here lived and died between the 1880s and the 1930s. It was a time when Texas was transitioning from a frontier state into a modern one.

We finished measuring the cemetery’s dimensions, got photos from each corner and were looking over our checklist when Mario asked if I wanted to see the grave of a Confederate soldier.

I immediately said, “Yes.”

We walked about 400 feet into the brush and came upon this solitary grave that as you can see from the cedar posts once had a fence around it.

Here is a close up of the marker’s inscription.

You can see that Andrew Baxter Long was born in Georgia in 1839 and died here in Pecos County in 1915. The “Served CSA” is plainly engraved at the bottom. Someone had even planted a Confederate flag to commemorate his service.

Here’s the view of the headstone from the back.

A lonely little grave out in the mesquites of Pecos County.

Because he was white, Andrew Long’s grave was not located inside the Mexican cemetery. Segregated cemeteries have been a fact of life for decades, if not centuries. Even hipster haven Marfa still has a segregated cemetery.

We left to look at the second location. After driving another 20 miles we came up to a small cemetery near Girvin. But unlike Buena Vista (and most of Texas), this one had an unusual mixture of Mexican and Anglo gravesites.

The headstone for eight-year-old Ruth Ward.

One of the older markers was for Charles Ross who was born in 1870 and died in 1928.

Charles even had his own little fenced-off plot, indicating he might have been somewhat prosperous.

The Hispanic graves just had simple crosses, no detailed markers.

One had a “headstone” that was just a pile of rocks in the shape of a cross.

By registering these two cemeteries with the Texas Historical Commission, we can get them protected from being plowed over or destroyed. It doesn’t matter if you are Hispanic or Anglo, I believe everyone agrees that the remains of the dead should be respected. I also believe that there are people living in Fort Stockton today who probably have ancestors buried at one of these cemeteries. Perhaps the Pecos County Historical Commission can host a Day of the Dead ceremony at one of the locations to clean up and decorate the graves.

It was a very interesting day, doing our small part to uncover some “hidden history” in Pecos County and to bring the long-gone communities of Buena Vista and Girvin to light.

And to learn more about the Spaniards who arrived in Texas two centuries before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.

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Adios, for now.

Had no idea I would make it this far, and I have no idea why God has let me live this long.

As with any “getting older” birthday (basically all of them after 60) you tend to reflect on the past, how you got here, and what a long, strange trip it’s been. Mainly you think about those who have left before you and how much you miss them.

I cannot recall a time in my life that I didn’t know Andy Collins. His dad, John, and his mom, Iva Aline were life-long friends with my late father, Frank, from the time they first met in elementary school in Fort Stockton back in the 1930s.

A school pic from Fort Stockton around 1934. John and Iva Aline Collins and my dad, sticking his tongue out. (That may be where my non-conformist streak comes from.)

Because John, Iva Aline and my dad were all best friends it was natural that Andy, my brother Miles, and I became fast friends right at birth. Dad and John Collins were so close that John would drive his family to Mississippi every Thanksgiving to spend the holiday with us. As Andy would tell Miles and me, “You’re the brothers I never had.”

Andy (left) with Miles as we prepare to go canoeing with our families on Black Creek near Brooklyn, MS, Thanksgiving, 1966.

After graduating Baylor, I moved to Dallas where Andy lived, and he, Miles and I led a life for more than 20 years that I can only describe as one adventure after another, unencumbered by any responsibilities. We were all three single and it was the 70s in Texas.

(Top Photo) Loading the pickup for our annual campout. Andy always said, “When you go camping, only carry what you can carry on your back……the back of a pickup.”

(Second photo) Once camp was pitched, we stayed up until after midnight so we could say that we were the first to wish Miles a Happy Birthday.

Every year, on Christmas Day, we would load up our old 70 Ford pickup and go camp in a hackberry grove on Andy’s ranch outside of Fort Stockton. It was a ritual we kept going well into our 40s. (If you want to watch a YouTube video of one of our Christmas hunting trips from 1990, go here.)

We either walked to our hunting spot, or drove a pickup truck. Those little glorified go-karts, or “side-by-sides” had not been invented, yet, but if you had a pickup truck, you drove it out in the wilderness. You didn’t keep it polished and sitting in your garage. We didn’t hunt over a feeder, nor did we have blinds, and we generally did not wear camouflage.

Andy, brother Miles and close friend, Edwin, on a dove hunt near Coleman, TX, 1977. Bell bottom jeans and a ‘67 Mercedes to get us there.

Andy was a great outdoorsman. Not only was he an incredible shot (I once saw him hit a wild turkey in the neck with a .243 while the bird was 150 yards from us), but he was also a good fisherman. On the dove hunt to Coleman pictured above, he noticed some bass hitting the top of the water in the dirt tank, so he ran to the car, grabbed a fishing reel, and caught these bass while we were shooting birds non-stop around him. That big one on the right weighed in at five pounds!

Fishing and hunting, at the same time, and successful at both.

Besides hunting, we also took a yearly scuba trip to the British Virgin Islands aboard a Windjammer sailing ship. This started in 1976, and continued for ten years. Each evening we commandeered the bar at the stern of the tall ship and drank a few.

The Three Amigos, Miles, Andy and me aboard the Flying Cloud.

Then the next day, we woke up and scuba dove all day long. One of our favorite dive spots was the wreck of the H.M.S. Rhone.

Me, Miles and Andy holding a wrench from the wreck of the H.M. S. Rhone off of Tortola in the B.V.I.

Andy in his scuba gear, circa 1977. No wet suits for us!!!

If we weren’t hunting, or scuba diving, we were skiing. Every spring we headed to Colorado for a week on the slopes. Andy wasn’t a great skier, but he loved going. We always packed a lunch and carried it up on the slopes, then went back off the trail into the trees to eat. The mountain jays would come up to us for a bite or two.

A mountain jay, or “camp robber” grabs a snack on Andy’s ski boot. Monarch Ski Area, Garfield, CO. 1976

But Andy was most at home on his family’s ranch between Burnet and Lampasas, TX. His father, John, bought the place when I was 10 years old. I remember visiting there with my parents, Andy, his sister Aline, and their cousins from Southern California.

(L-R) John, Aline (Andy’s older sister) my brother Miles, Marsh (Andy’s cousin) Mark (other cousin) Andy, Bill (Andy’s uncle) me, with my sunglasses.

Andy really came into his own after he graduated high school. After trying a few colleges, he basically moved down to “Burnet” as we all called it. He spent nearly every weekend there, usually with his steady girlfriend, Venita. They made a very photogenic couple.

Andy and Venita, along with my date for the weekend in the summer of 1977.
Dig the old ‘53 Chevy five-window pickup. The paint job on it was still pretty good .

Whenever he was down there, with or without Venita, we always had an open invitation. It was only about a three-hour drive southwest from Oak Cliff. So Miles and I went there a lot.

In the cab of the ‘53 Chevy.

Now Andy drank a lot back then, mainly because we all did. We were in our 20s and could knock back a few beers or cocktails without major damage. So his alcohol use didn’t seem out of line.

That all changed after the wreck. He was driving from the ranch into Burnet to get some more beer and went off the road. The car rolled over. Neither he nor his friend from Texas Tech were wearing seatbelts. Andy lived, his friend died.

I am no therapist, and I don’t pretend to be, but it was pretty much after that (not immediately) that he started drinking more. Only now he begin to drink with a purpose. He no longer drank to have fun.

I used to watch him drink an entire case of Budweiser by himself. I could never do that because my bladder couldn’t handle it, yet I saw him do this on several occasions.

He also started drinking more whiskey — Crown Royal.

Lots of it.

It was from that point on that the Andy we once knew was pretty much gone. When he was sober, he was the greatest guy to be with. Funny, and generous as hell. He told the same jokes every year, and we all still laughed at them. But he was extremely hard to be around if he had been drinking. And the problem was now he was drinking almost all the damned time.

Christmas, 1983. Pam, brother Miles and Andy. Mom is in the background. One of the times he was sober.

He still lived with his mom and dad in his childhood home in Oak Cliff. It didn’t bother Miles or me, but he was a little sensitive about it. We still saw him, but not as much unless we went over to his house. He had quit driving and would walk over to West Cliff Mall where they had a little private bar called The Yankee. He would get shit-faced there, then call Miles or I to come pick him up and drive him home.

By now Miles and I were both married with children and only saw him on our annual dove hunts and during the Christmas holidays out in Pecos County.

We still went on our annual campout/deer hunt down in the hackberry trees on his place, but by now Andy had for all intents and purposes, stopped hunting.

Whenever we woke up before sunrise to go out to our hunting spots, Andy always said, “I never killed a deer before 10 am anyway” then rolled over and went back to sleep.

Miles, standing in our primitive camp in the hackberries, Pecos County, Texas.

The last time I saw Andy alive was two days before he died. I drove by because I had to go pick up some ad copy in Fort Worth for a magazine I was publishing at the time, SportsPulse. I pulled up to his house and went inside to see if he wanted to come with me. It was about 1:00 pm and he was just waking up.

Somehow I talked him into coming. We went to Fort Worth and back and I dropped him off at his house. Nothing unusual about it.

Two days later, on April 16, 1999, he locked himself in his parents bathroom and slit his own throat with a knife.

When I got the phone call from Aline, I wasn’t just stunned, I simply could not believe it. Miles, myself and Andy’s long-time neighbor, Shawn, were just dumbfounded. None of us saw this coming. We knew he was depressed, but nothing even hinted at suicide. We all thought we knew him, but now we discovered we didn’t really know him at all.

What was revealed to us later was that Andy had been taking numerous psychiatric drugs. They had been prescribed to him by a therapist he was seeing. This happened nearly 15 years before Robin Williams tragic death, and the scrutiny his passing brought to prescription meds with warning labels that read, “may cause thoughts of suicide.”

The more I think about it, the more I believe the meds were the main factor in his suicide. I am always asked, “Didn’t you have any idea this could happen?” but I always answer “No,” because the Andy I knew would never do anything to harm his parents, and this was about the most harmful thing you could do.

He also once told us, “Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.”

We had no warning, no tip, not even a hint, and that is what made it so confounding.

What did I miss that I could have done? Should I have done more?

I don’t think I’ll ever know.

His parents had him cremated. Miles and I got a headstone made and put it on top of the mesa by our deer camp. Every Christmas, we used to go up there at midnight to bring in Miles’ birthday on December 26. We stood around some old Indian graves that had been there for centuries, and fired our handguns into the air. On Labor Day weekend, 2000, we carried the headstone up to the top one night, then fired our pistols in the air as one last salute to our fallen comrade and walked back down.

A few months later his family and a few close friends scattered his ashes up there.

Andy’s headstone, atop a mesa in Pecos County.

The worst part of this was about five years ago I lost my brother, Miles, so the Three Amigos are a solo act now. I think about Andy, and Miles a lot today, on my birthday, but I’m not sad about it. Mainly I remember how much fun we had and all of the trips we took.

Crazy thing is I dreamt about them nearly two years ago. In my dream I was walking in a small forest when I came upon them. They were both sitting around a very small campfire, so small it was almost like it was in a coffee can. They were sitting in aluminum lawn chairs, just laughing it up, big time. I asked them what they were doing. They both turned to me and said, “We’re having the best time! Come over here and sit with us!”

I thought about that dream today.

It would be pretty to think so.

(If you are having any thoughts of suicide or harming yourself, please pick up your phone and call somebody……….Anybody.)

Miles, myself and Andy, at San Pedro Springs, Pecos County, Texas.

Miles, Andy and me, Christmas, 1982, at his grandmother’s house near Greenwood, TX.

Miles and Andy, Pecos County, Texas, 1978

Me, Andy and Miles at Faces nightclub on Cedar Springs, Dallas, Texas when the Fabulous Thunderbirds were playing that night. 1978.

Our horse, Sunny, during the big Texas grid failure of 2021. Somehow she made it!!!

We thought we were headed for another round last week. The forecasts had us dipping into the teens, so just like last time we got ready.

When Di and I moved back out to the ranch near 10 years ago, I made a fateful decision. My mother had installed central air and heat in the old adobe house, so I thought we didn’t need the old Dearborn propane heaters, and I got rid of them.

Big mistake.

What I didn’t know until too late was that the heat in the central HVAC unit was provided by an electric coil, not gas, and it takes a butt load of electricity to heat up that coil. So much so that we got a $500 electric bill the first time a cold front hit!!!

Now I’m not one to throw money at the power company, so just before that 2021 cold front that caused the Texas power grid to shut down, Roland and I went out and gathered as much mesquite wood as we could harvest, then kept a fire in the fireplace burning 24X7.

It worked.

We lowered our electric bill by nearly $300!!!

With another “winter-mageddeon” looming, I decided to do it again. Lucky for me there is plenty of mesquite out here, but the hard part is finding it in bunches.

The mesquite firewood you buy at the store comes as logs, or what some call “split mesquite.” It’s fine, but it burns more quickly than what we use. Out here, we look for what my grandfather called a “grub.” It is the root ball of the mesquite, and is only found underground, but it burns much longer and hotter.

A mesquite grub. You can see the stalks that branch above ground to the right of the photo.

Now here is one up next to a mesquite so you can get an idea of how much wood is below the surface.

Believe it or not, there is a “grub” or root ball this big underneath that mesquite bush.

The biggest challenge is how to gather a lot of it. You have two choices:

1. Drive your truck around until you see a dead mesquite, then dig up the grub beneath it, or……

2. Find a place where they have cleared the land using a bulldozer, leaving a big pile of grubs for you to grab.

I chose the latter.

Our “neighbors” the McKenzies (they only live 24 miles down the road) had done some clearing around the edge of their alfalfa field, so I got in my old 1970 Ford and headed out there.

At the edge of the field you can find where the bulldozer has pushed up some big grubs. And you don’t have to dig them out!!!

The cold front was on its way as I started throwing mesquite in the back of the pickup truck. There were already 45 mph winds hitting us!!!