Category: Crazy Times

Amazing Things, Cecil Lewis, Crazy Times, Thoughts and Musings, Travels1 Comment

Travels Across The Desert

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Few people ever went long distances prior to the last 4 or 5 decades. If they did it was making a migration to hopefully find a better life. That was in about 1955 or 1956. Maw-Maw Nonie and Paw-Paw Theron went with my parents and us to visit California. Kenny and I were both were pre-school age, 3 and 6. All six loaded up in a new Mercury 2 door car that Cec had just bought. It didn’t have air conditioning, few cars did back then. Being in the hot summertime Cec bought a contraption called a Thermador Car Cooler. … Continue reading Travels Across The Desert

Amazing Things, Crazy Times, The Early Days1 Comment

A Trip Up Sheffield Hill

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(Originally posted on March 8, 2017) I had been waiting almost 47 years to retrace some tracks that I made in what seems like a different lifetime. My wife and I made a trip out to Big Bend a few years ago, so it was a prefect time see what the big deal with Sheffield Hill was. (also called Lancaster Hill) Driving A Cattle Truck Soon after graduating from high school, I was still 17 years old, I got hired on as a relief driver, driving a cattle truck for the Wenmohs Ranch. I was Wallace Herbert’s swamper. I guess … Continue reading A Trip Up Sheffield Hill

Cecil Lewis, Crazy Times, The Construction Biz, Thoughts and MusingsLeave a comment

Cec And The Big Billy Goat

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When we were building the Guadalupe River State Park my dad, Cecil took his small travel trailer down at the very end of the park at the rivers hairpin bend, to stay away from everyone else. The park land extends across the river at that narrow point and has some primitive camping and hiking over there. Between the time we bid that project and it actually getting under way, there was the huge flood that snapped off gigantic cypress trees and altered the landscape forever. Cec would sit and watch a herd of Spanish Goats that climbed the rock bluffs … Continue reading Cec And The Big Billy Goat

Cecil Lewis, Crazy Times, On The JobLeave a comment

He Bit My Thumb

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There are a few things in life that really don’t mix. Being really tough and drinking too much are a good example of this. Cecil Lewis was tough guy and he drank a way more than he should have. Back in 1980 – 1981 I had contracted to build a new state park and campground area down on the Guadalupe River near the little community of Bergheim not far from Boerne, Texas. When I needed him, my dad would help me out on projects. On this job he mostly drove a water truck. He never drank while on the job … Continue reading He Bit My Thumb

Crazy Times, The Construction Biz, Thoughts and Musings1 Comment

A Look Back To A Defining Moment In My Culinary Life

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What Is Your Favorite Salad Dressing? This was a topic on a different Facebook group that I saw earlier today and it got me thinking. Everyone has an opinion on Salad Dressing. I’m fairly alright with any of them, but I do have my favorite – Blue Cheese. I can’t tell you why. It’s seems like an acquired taste kind of thing. Years ago I was all in on a tangy French (maybe it was truly a Russian Dressing) It was Pizza Huts signature dressing, then one day they did away with it. I never will understand that. On a … Continue reading A Look Back To A Defining Moment In My Culinary Life

Another Daily Happening, Crazy Times, Kenny Lewis2 Comments

Circling 4-Wheelers

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Back in the winter of 1984, Kenny had a deer lease on several thousand acres of south Texas land between Laredo and Freer. He was so gracious to ask me down a few times. (or anytime I wanted to come). Once when several people were there, but all still out hunting, he and I both arrived back at camp, a nice house actually, on our 4-wheelers. The timing was such that coming from opposite directions we reached the big open gravel parking lot in front of the house at the same time. Skillfully we head for each other but turned … Continue reading Circling 4-Wheelers

Aging, Crazy Times, Thoughts and Musings2 Comments

Riding On The Back Of An Elephant

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Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying anything disparaging about the fairer sex in what I’m fixing to write but you tell me there aren’t differences is in the two sexes. Back in 2005 we were over in Africa. One day we decide it was a great idea to go on an elephant back tour through the wilds of Zimbabwe. We got on at a big platform with me sitting behind my wife and the lady traveling with us got on another elephant sitting just in front of an Englishman, a stranger. We weren’t yet out of sight of the … Continue reading Riding On The Back Of An Elephant

Amazing Things, Crazy Times, Thoughts and MusingsLeave a comment

Taking Care Of Business

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We have been procrastinating about something for a long time. Today we went to the funeral home to do a burial prearrangement plan. As we were walking in I looked down on the sidewalk and a credit card was laying there. I picked it up. It had the name of a friend of mine in Liberty Hill. I took a picture of it and texted to that friend. He had in fact lost it. He was getting DEF fluid down the street and some of it splash his card. He laid it on the running board, probably intending to reach … Continue reading Taking Care Of Business

Crazy Times, Kenny Lewis, My Friends2 Comments

Refueling During Mid-Flight

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Something had taken Kenny & me to Burnet one day back in our youth. Mostly likely it was to Bill Heckman’s Parts Store so we could get parts to fix something that was broken down. Clay Simmons had ridden along that day in that 1966 Chevrolet pickup with us. We were returning to Marble at about the only speed Kenny Lewis knew, about 90 MPH or greater. It was typical for us to have a 55 gallon drum of gasoline with a pump screwed into the top of it, to fill up any of our old dump trucks, as the … Continue reading Refueling During Mid-Flight

Crazy Times, The Early Days

The Crane Lawsuit

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My first experience with being involved in a lawsuit didn’t take long once I got out into the working world. Sometime in late 1970 we leased a truck out to Charlie Evans Trucking. Mr. Evans had been a trucker in Austin for many years and decided to expand his business by opening a terminal in San Antonio. I had just turned 18 years old. I decided it would be a good adventure to go there and live in an old run down motel and make hauls all around San Antonio. The Spur Motel was just a block or so down … Continue reading The Crane Lawsuit