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Unraveling A Fifty Five Year Old Mystery

lewisotr

I never thought that I’d be the one writing this. But I figured someone needs to. Not wanting to hurt anyones feeling or cause pain to anyone, I intentionally left out the names of those involved. Anyone familiar with the story will recognize it immediately and if you don’t, it shouldn’t make any difference to you. I find myself between a rock and a hard place telling what I believe is the answer to a decades old murder, a murder of a young girl that was killed in my hometown, when we were in the 8th grade. I am writing … Continue reading Unraveling A Fifty Five Year Old Mystery

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The Evolution of the Excavator Buckets We Use to Dig Ditches

lewisotr

When I first started in the underground utility business, almost 50 years ago, excavator buckets were all flat bottom, mostly lighter weight buckets made for digging in dirt. We dug rock with them by day and welded on them by night. Standard Weight Bucket A Heavy Class Flat Mouth Bucket For some of our harder digging we started welding ripper teeth pockets on the back of our heavier buckets. The ripper shanks were used to contact with rock by curling the bucket inward and dragging the ripper into ledgey rock and even in blasted rock. They worked well most of the … Continue reading The Evolution of the Excavator Buckets We Use to Dig Ditches

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I Have Decided After Almost 6 Years That It’s Time For A Change

lewisotr

I have found that it’s time for a change with The Angora Chronicles. I don’t see it going away, but I think it would be better if we change the way it is brought to you. So rather than it being in written word form, I am tooling up for it to become a series of audio clips, photos and memes. Of course it will still have titles and brief descriptions of what you will see in the clip, that will be written out. It will be necessary for each of our comments to also be an audio clip. It … Continue reading I Have Decided After Almost 6 Years That It’s Time For A Change

Crazy Times, Kenny Lewis, UncategorizedLeave a comment

The Circling 4-Wheelers

lewisotr

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). That weekend several people were there, but all were still out hunting. Kenny and I both arrived back at camp lodge, 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 lodge at the same time. We skillfully headed for each other but turned slightly … Continue reading The Circling 4-Wheelers

Crazy Times, Kenny Lewis, UncategorizedLeave a comment

When A Man Has A Good Wife Behind Him

lewisotr

This is a complication of stories (3 of them) that were written by Kenny Lewis. In the beginning of the third story he proclaims it’s the last one. That may be correct, but as long as Kenny Lewis is walking around on this earth and still drawing breath, there’s a chance another incident could still be yet to come. If another one comes along, he may not write about it, but I’ll gladly do the honors. Wife To The Rescue – Part 1 For those that are not aware, I have been married three times. Even though I’m sure, had … Continue reading When A Man Has A Good Wife Behind Him

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My Mother

lewisotr

Bonnie Gay would have been 87 today. She grew up poor, in a very large family. She was the 8th out of 11 children. Her father died when she 9 years old. She married at 15, had her first child at 17. She waited until she was 19 to have her 2nd child and that was me. She only lived in Smithwick and Jollyville her whole life. She was a friend to many and an enemy to no one or nothing. She was a deadly shot with a Winchester 30/30, lever action rifle with open sights. She wasn’t very big, … Continue reading My Mother

Amazing Things, My Friends, The Construction Biz, UncategorizedLeave a comment

My Friend Jim

lewisotr

Here I was a couple of weeks ago, sitting thinking, thinking of my past. I decided 20 years was too long to go without seeing and talking to my ole friend Jim. Jim and I had once belonged to the same church, played on the church softball team together and between the two of us, we had 9 kids, with only 1 girl in the bunch. We had a lot in common, yet hardly anything in common. Jim was college educated and had worked in the non-profit world and I barely made it out of high school and was attempting … Continue reading My Friend Jim

Cecil Lewis, Crazy Times, On The Job, UncategorizedLeave a comment

The Young Detectives

lewisotr

Our dad was working for an old time contractor by the name of Holland Page, installing a new wastewater system all around the town of Gatesville. The year was probably 1963. That summer we went there part of the time to spend with him. He had an apartment rented. They had a guy working previously that was trying to make an insurance claim for a back injury that supposedly happened on the job. Cec, my dad, knew that wasn’t possible because “the guy had been too lazy to pickup anything“. After talking to various people around town, this fellow had … Continue reading The Young Detectives

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Harold Crider Was A Great Bulldozer Contractor

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He was honest, hard working and ran a really great operation. A man to be admired. Whether building a stock tank or pushing and piling brush, he could get it done. He had really great operators working for him. As much as I remember watching and looking up to him (even though you had to be fairly short to actually look up “to” him) there was one peculiar thing that I most remember. He always hauled his dozers around on a float type trailer (that’s a trailer that the bed is approximately 5′ off the ground) instead of a lowboy … Continue reading Harold Crider Was A Great Bulldozer Contractor

Another Daily Happening, Cecil Lewis, Crazy Times, The Early Days, UncategorizedLeave a comment

We Did Things Much Differently Back Then

lewisotr

I grew up around construction equipment and trucks. In the 60s when I was in high school, my dad, Cecil Lewis ran a fleet of dump trucks. Among other things we had the contract to haul the blasted rock from the Pure Stone Quarry out south of Marble Falls back to the crusher in town. Even as young and as small as I was at 14 or 15, I would single-handedly pull transmissions and replace clutches in those old dump trucks and did brake jobs. I knew how to do all that then. For sure, there was always a lot … Continue reading We Did Things Much Differently Back Then