Ivan Shepperd posted a story a while back about the big rock in his front yard growing up. It was left there after construction in the neighborhood at the request of his mother. Seeing that rock when I passed there … Continue reading Mustang Drive Boulders
This was written back in Oct. 2018 and shared on this group. As I attended the funeral of a friend, I reflected back on the first memory I have of this man. John R. Hughes was a young man then. … Continue reading The Sad Facts We Face – Burying Friends
I know I’ve told y’all this story before, but I can’t pull it up. That may be because it was in the comments of another story. Anyway, I don’t have much going on this morning so I’ll just re-tell it. It’s actually worthy of being a story all on its own. Back in the late 1970s I contracted to do the excavation for the Capitol National Bank in downtown Austin. The project called for the removal of approximately 100,000 cubic yards of solid limestone. The excavation was a hole that was a full block square by about 30’ deep. It … Continue reading The Big Loser
No name is larger than David B Barrow when thinking of the expansion of Austin to the north and west. Far West, Greystone, Mesa Dr., the Cat Mountain area and beyond can all be credited to David B Barrow. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Hills,_Austin,_Texas David B Barrow – the master developer of Northwest Hills of Austin, showing his arrowhead / artifacts collection. 1949 https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth62954/ Continue reading The Expansion of Austin to the Northwest
Me being a person that would never be involved in self-promotion (cough cough cough) I’m going to tell you about myself. I’m in my 48th year in the underground contracting business. Perhaps the single toughest business where we encounter unknown obstacles daily, never knowing what’s below. There may not be any other business where the liabilities are as great and the rewards are as uncertain. “What was I thinking when I jumped off into this industry and started subcontracting“, mostly on a shoestring, in 1972, the replacing of water lines all over Burnet, Texas. I was a few months short … Continue reading The South San Gabriel Wastewater Project
A few years ago, when it was time to grab one of the big machines and take off across Texas, Charlie “Speedy” Leseman would get this rig all shined up and head out to wherever it was he needed to go. I don’t care what anyone says, that was a heavy haul rig. I was always proud to see those black trucks (there were others too) pulling out of a job loaded down and going to the next one. There’s a time and a place for everything. So now those are just fond memories. Continue reading This Is Called “Living In The Past”
The year was 1964. There was an old Austin contractor by the name of Holland Page. My dad worked for Mr. Page for a few years in the 60s. His office and shop was just north of US 183 about 3 or 4 blocks on North Lamar. Kenny and I spent many Saturday’s there exploring around climbing on every kind of piece of machinery imaginable. Mr. Page was a very large man, or so it seemed. He was always nice to us. He didn’t seem to care what we did, he only cautioned us to watch for rattlesnakes back around … Continue reading What Life Almost Was – The Holland Page Construction Story
Sometime in 1973 we were doing a project for the new I-35 expansion in downtown Austin. It was a crazy, difficult project with old pipes running underground every which way. We had one place that we were excavating about 40 deep and then bored underneath I-35 for about 250 feet to run a new wastewater line. In those days the road bores were done where water was mixed with the limestone rock cuttings that were being excavated. It was called Wet Bore Method as opposed to now most all road bores are done using the Dry Bore Method. Wet Boring … Continue reading A Case of Limestone Poisoning ?
General Motors had started making a 6.2 liter Diesel engine for their pickups. It was advertised to be the greatest advance in power that had ever been. I had to have one. I found one. I didn’t care what color it was or where I had to go to get it. I just needed to hear the roar of that big diesel engine and feel the power when I stepped down on it. There was one other thing. It had to have all the features available, but had to have rubber floor mats instead of carpet. That was a pretty … Continue reading The Very Worst Vehicle Purchase I Ever Made
Gk was my accountant for several years. I’ve mentioned him in a couple of my previous stories. I mostly called him Worley, his last name. GK was so fast on a desk calculator, you’d think the keys were going to fly off. By the time I got to know him, he was pretty much an old drunk. He would shake a lot. But when he would sit down and had a pen in his hand that man had the nicest handwriting of any person I’ve ever known. He had gone to a business school when he was young. He could … Continue reading GK, My Accountant With A Drinking Problem
Angora Chronicles 