Crazy Times, Funny Happenings, Thoughts and MusingsLeave a comment

Jake The Building Trades Teacher

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Robert Woodard was his name but his first year teaching Building Trades, the year before I was old enough to take it, some of the boys starting calling him Jake and it stuck. “Hey Jake what are we doing next?” or Hey Jake can we take a break?” I always considered Jake pretty easy going, very knowledgeable and an all round good teacher. But if you got him riled up, you better watch out. Some of the older guys and a few of the younger ones were real hoodlums. They would always try Jake on for size. He swung a … Continue reading Jake The Building Trades Teacher

Thoughts and MusingsLeave a comment

Ever Wonder How A Mosquito Bite Works?

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I got bit twice the other day. One on each leg down right above the kneecap. One puffed up real big while the other one did little more than left a red mark and was gone in a day or so. Trying to figure out what the reason was I did a little looking around. It seems Mrs. Mosquito lights on you and spits some salvia on you to deaden the spot, so you don’t swat her immediately, the she goes to work trying to jab into you. As she moves around she spits more salvia on your skin and … Continue reading Ever Wonder How A Mosquito Bite Works?

Marble Falls and the Area Around it., Texas History, Thoughts and MusingsLeave a comment

Rice Culture in Colorado County

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Marker erected: Intersection of Main & Commerce Streets, Eagle Lake Marker Text:The rice industry did not spread into the coastal plains region west of Houston until the very end of the 19th century. In 1898, Captain William Dunovant (1845-1902), a local plantation owner and entrepreneur, planted 40 acres of rice at the southeast corner of Eagle Lake (2.5 miles south) as an experiment, using convict labor from a nearby prison farm to construct levees and harvest the new crop. The small tract produced such encouraging results that in 1899 Dunvovant built a pumping plant on the lake and irrigated 250-300 … Continue reading Rice Culture in Colorado County

Amazing Things, Texas HistoryLeave a comment

10 South Texas Windmills by Atilano Salas

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All but two of the windmills on the ranch were built to the same design, but no two were alike when the wind put them to work. Visible for miles jutting above the chaparral, each sounded out a tuneless melody, an almost unbroken clanging, slow and comforting and rhythmic, coupled to the occasional metal-on-metal squeal of the tail adjusting to a shift in the breeze, its blades slicing air with a tempered whoosh, pulling up clear cool water flowing steadily into the cistern through the long galvanized discharge pipe. It was as though these lone sentinels scattered in a sea … Continue reading 10 South Texas Windmills by Atilano Salas

Aging, Crazy Times, Grandchildren, Thoughts and MusingsLeave a comment

Pulling A Tooth

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Sofia is getting to the age where she is starting to lose teeth. She came over the other night and wanted me to pull her loose tooth, her first. I sent her to get a handkerchief from my chest of drawers to aid in getting a grip. She pointed to the tooth. I worked and worked with the tooth and it wouldn’t come out. It was bleeding a little but would not come out. I finally told her we needed to wait and give it a little more time. She went on her way. She got over to her house, … Continue reading Pulling A Tooth

Aging, Crazy Times, Thoughts and MusingsLeave a comment

A Good Deed, That May Never Go Away

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This story goes back several years. It all started when an old gal I know needed some help. She desperately needed some help. She lives in a very decrepit old house. I got word that the City (an unnamed city) was going to condemn her home that had been in her family for many decades. There was junk piled up higher than an Elephant’s Eye. (I finally found a way to incorporate that line in a story. It was included in a nasty letter I received from a homeowner years ago that we had installed a wastewater line adjacent to … Continue reading A Good Deed, That May Never Go Away

Aging, Amazing Things, Crazy Times, Thoughts and MusingsLeave a comment

Tommy Houy was a Honda Motorcycle guy all the way

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I think his first motorcycle was a 125cc that he had when I first came to school in Marble Falls. That was starting in 8th grade. I don’t think he ran all over on it, but rode it over on his side of town. Then he jumped up to a 350cc. It was metallic blue. That’s the one he wrecked on. (More on that below) During the repairing of it, he switched the color to a metal flake orange. A few years later he went up to a 450cc, then eventually a 750cc. Buy the time he and I became … Continue reading Tommy Houy was a Honda Motorcycle guy all the way