The Texas Highway Department was officially renamed the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) in 1991. This change reflected the agency’s broader responsibilities beyond just highway construction and maintenance, encompassing all modes of transportation in the state. Continue reading The Texas Highway Department
Remember when times were so simple and sensible. The Texas Highway Dept. used to erect little ladders (called stiles) to cross the fence at the Roadside Park’s so people could go out in the adjoining pasture to take care of their “needs” ? Not only are the ladders gone, but so are most of the roadside parks. Continue reading Remember When !
I remember my mother with a wet sponge mopping the backs of those trading stamps and carefully putting them in books. I really only remember my mother collecting S&H Green and Texas Gold. I read on Wikipedia that Texas Gold was primarily a HEB thing. Is that the way you remember it? What kind of things did your mother buy with stamps? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trading_stamp Continue reading Trading Stamps
This is swimming weather. A hot and sunny afternoon like we have today transports me back in time. Before we moved back to Marble Falls, we spent almost a decade living near Jollyville in two locations. From 1958 until 1965 we lived down Spicewood Springs Road, where I’ve written about breaking Shetlands, raising Angora goats, playing with copperheads and rattlesnakes and had every kind of adventure young boys could have ever wished for. The beautiful Bull Creek meandered up through a nice peaceful valley from Lake Austin just below the Loop 360 – Pennybacker Bridge to the head of it … Continue reading Swimming Holes on Bull Creek
But I’ll have to say that after going through an old box of papers, I have formed a different opinion of what was normal. These are papers I left behind at Smithwick when I moved on to start the “calmer period in my life”, when I got married, that my mother so carefully archived for me. I look back on my early “growing up years” and think that I was a fairly normal boy. I got into a few things, but nothing much that I was ashamed to admit. The following photograph is a vast array of traffic tickets I … Continue reading Mind You, I’m Not Bragging
I was filling up with gas one over at the Swift Mart. I had been feeding my Barbados the evening before, then it rained. An old friend, Damon Thurman came sauntering over and we were both leaning on the bed rail of my truck just guy talking. He noticed that a few feed pellets that had spilled out and became rain soaked. Even I could have mistaken them for something else, but I never hauled a dog with me, because I didn’t have one. He said “You nasty ba$&@#d why don’t you ever wash out the bed of your truck? … Continue reading Sheep And Goat Feed Can Take On Another Look When It Gets Wet
I went out to Las Vegas in about 1982 or 1983 to Con-Ex-Po. That is a trade show for machines and equipment in the construction and mining industries. You can see the biggest machines and all the newest innovations known to man. Anyone in my business will walk around in awe at some of the things you see. Nothing caught my attention more than a fellow at one booth that was cutting really thick slabs of metal. He was slicing through 2″ & 3″ thick pieces of steel like any one I’d ever seen before cut 1/2″ metal. It was … Continue reading Hooking A Cutting Torch Up To Gasoline
Sean is a great writer. He writes the kind of stuff that needs to be written about. The supermarket checkout line. She was white-haired and frail. Her buggy was filled to capacity so that it looked like she was pushing a coal barge up the Mississippi. The first item she placed onto the conveyor belt was an extra-large case of Coors. “That’s a lot of beer,” said I. She smiled. “On sale.” “Are you the one who drinks it?” She nodded. “Two beers a day keeps the doctor away.” “I don’t think that’s how the saying goes.” “Yeah, well, I … Continue reading This Story Got Me Following Sean Dietrich.
The Road They Couldn’t Make Up Their Mind About. A History Of Texas Highway 29. (If highways had feelings, 29 would feel like a red-headed stepchild) When I’m heading out west, I usually hit 29 and end up at its terminus in Menard, where it becomes something else. When heading to east Texas I often take 29 over toward Taylor to where it ends into Texas 95 at Circleville. (I always wish it went a little farther to the east, to make it easier to connect up to Bryan/College Station via Hearn, and other eastward destinations) I guess I always … Continue reading Texas 29 Highway History
Angora Chronicles 