When I was a small child there used to be a lot of really large bullfrogs. We had frog legs fairly regularly. I guess they have mostly been killed off. These pictures of my brother, Kenny holding big ones. This was about 1953. But those look small compared to this on I saw here on FB. Now that would make a mess of frog legs. Continue reading There Used To Be Some Big Bullfrogs Around This Area.
Back in 1976 we headed off to Houston to build a project out off of Highway 6 between I-10 and 290. A new housing development. We installed the utilities (water, wastewater and storm sewers) while a company from Houston built the streets and did the grading for the project. This company was new to that type of work, as their primary business had been building and maintaining railroads. It may have been their first venture into subdivisions. They were really a bunch of nice guys that were easy to get along with. Something I can’t say for all companies we … Continue reading It Was A Sign Of The Times
Citizens at the Groundbreaking Photos of the new expansion Continue reading BiG – The Single Greatest Organization I’ve Ever Came In Contact With
One time years ago we were working beside North Lamar out just north of Rhomberg Lane in north Austin. A few blocks south of our job site 2 cars got together in a pretty bad crash. Attorneys got involved and started suing everyone they could think of. I’m not sure how our name got involved but it did and we were named in the suit. Several months or even years had past when an attorney called me to get a statement. She had almost worn me completely out when I told her that I would send her a map marked … Continue reading Attorney’s Don’t Always Think Out Their Next Question
Back when my friend Winfield, the CPA, worked for me we were being courted by one of the big downtown Austin banks. Emory Thompson was the pitch man for The Capitol National Bank that would come by and try to get us bring our business to them. I knew him, his family had owned a big tire business that had sold and he went from being a tire salesman to being a money salesman. We had been doing business with a small local bank in north Austin, aptly named North Austin State Bank. They had done everything I’d ever wanted … Continue reading Capitol National Bank, Winfield and Me
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
With I-35 and the other highways of commerce from out to the east and west, it seems there was hardly a time that Austin was home to more than one Truck Stop. In the 50s and 60s, The Austin Truck Terminal up north just south of US 183 on I-35. It was owned by Mr. Herbert Skinner. He also owned Austin Truck & Machinery that was adjacent to it. It became the Freightliner Truck Dealership and remained there for many years. The cafe was Marvin’s in the early days and later was operated by a fellow by the name of … Continue reading Austin Was Always A One Truck Stop Town + the Big Wheel in Oak Hill.
(This was written by Kenny Lewis) Ronnie and I had our share of mishaps growing up and for that reason, were known by the men of the community as being rather reckless. Among those men was one of Dad’s closest friends, Brown Parker. He always said that “Cec could have been a millionaire had he knocked the two of us in the head when we were pups”. Daddy owned a pry bar that had previously been a truck axle. It was at least six feet long and 1 ½” in diameter. Brown always swore that it was the only thing … Continue reading Cec’s Pry Bar
The are some things that happen in our lives that leave us wondering about mankind. This story left me feeling less trustful and saddened. I had become very good friends with an old gentleman that was my neighbor, Udo Haufler. Upon his retiring after a long and successful career as an excavation contractor in Austin, I bought his office and yard along with several pieces of his equipment. I didn’t buy his business per se, and I’ve alway questioned why I didn’t. He had almost cornered the market on doing big excavation projects around Austin. The Haufler name in the … Continue reading The Double Cross
We have had to lzseveral discussions on The Angora Chronicles where people are convinced that something is one way, when it really seems very unlikely that it is true. But once that story is handed down through the generations, its very hard to dispute it. Even when playing the Pass It On Game, hardly ever does a phase or sentence make it through the next person without the meaning being scrambled, much less after it makes it around a circle of people. So think about how implausible and unlikely any story handed down through the ages is to what really … Continue reading Family Folklore Is A Powerful Thing
Angora Chronicles 