A Texas Tragedy - Part I

C. L. Doss, my great-great grandfather, at the age of fifty-three, moved from Barren County Kentucky to the community of Antioch in Johnson County, Texas to teach in a one-room school. He left behind his wife Elizabeth and two young daughters, Sophia and Alice, until he could earn the money to send for them. In part, here are his instructions for the trip.

Ma,

I send you, in a registered letter and addressed to John, $60. This is amply sufficient to bring you to Dallas. The fare from Bowling Green to Dallas, Will says, is $21.40 cts. - for a whole ticket. According to that, from the Junction will cost $22.35 cts. If you start without a full ticket, when you get to Bowling Green inquire for the "Ticket Ofice." Anybody can tell you where it is. By looking in at the door, you can see whether you are right or not and where to apply. You will only have about 15 or 20 minutes to get your tickets in, so you mustn't exercise too much dignity, but get your tickets and get your seats in the cars.

In all cases if you can, get seats near the middle of the coach. I am almost certain that the train that brings you to Bowling Green goes in to Nashville, and another train takes its place on the track. This is always the case when you change cars, I think. Of course, you can inquire "Where is the Memphis train?" or "Which is the Memphis train?" and so of other places (and trains.) Any of the employees of the railroad - those handling the baggage, the Baggage Master, the one who gives you your ticket (if not busy). The Police are also very suitable ones to inquire of. (You will know them by their dress in large places, especially blue-broadcloth).

You will get to Memphis in the morning and have to lie over there till night. During the day you must hunt the Baggage Master up (he is seldom far off) and get your baggage checked to Dallas. He'll take your checks and give you ones having "Dallas" instead of "Memphis" stamped upon them. Every chair has also a number stamped upon it, and the checks [small, square brass plates] you hold correspond in every respect to those fastened to your baggage.

If you lose your checks, anybody finding them could come to the point called for, present checks and take the goods. You can't get your goods without the checks. If you lose your tickets you are out without paying again! Put them in some convenient as well as safe place for every time Conductors are changed, you will have to show your tickets and put them away carefully when he hands them back. 

Don't be separated, especially at any place you get off to change cars. (You only change cars at B. Grn., at Memphis, at Little Rock, and Texarkana, I think). Hold Alice by the hand; keep Sophia also right at your side all the time you are anywhere. Keep your little budgets (baskets of provisions &c) also with you unless you should accidentally meet up with some (family or lady) coming like yourselves to Dallas. In such a case you might ask them, if they pleased, to watch your things.

Tell Pap’s little petted girl she shall have a hat if he has to do without cake and meat. We’ll get her one in Dallas. We’ll have to get a couple of bead-steads, some chairs a table etc.; but she must have a hat. Tell Sophie to bring Ina’s geography, it is at Self’s.

I am rather low spirited. Take care of Sophia and Alice. Don’t let them leave your side. Don’t get off or on the train while it is in motion. Keep a sharp look out and come ahead.

Pap

Tomorrow, the rest of the story.

Monday Meanderings - 2.15.2016

You gotta love this town!

Austin-Bergstrom International Airport broke its passenger record last year. The airport said last week that almost 12 million passengers walked through its gates, up 11 percent from the same period in 2014. But that's not the important news.

According to someone whose job it is to keep up with things like this, those 12 million passengers consumed, purchased or otherwise enjoyed:

• 65.5 tons of brisket, up 3.5 tons/7,000 lbs. or 5.5 percent over 2014
• 693,375 breakfast tacos, up 71,065 tacos or 11.5 percent from 2014
• 1,190 live music performances (23 per week)
• 51,278 “Keep Austin Weird” T-shirts, up 15,082 or 41.5 percent from 2014 

How do you get a job counting breakfast tacos consumed by airline passengers? And just what is your job title? IMWTK

Barbecue is big in Austin and probably the biggest player of all is Franklin's. With an average 4 hour wait to get served, you have time to meet, fall in love... and get married! One couple queued up in the line last Wednesday with a judge and a wedding license and profitably spent their waiting time getting hitched!

True to form, the couple wasn’t offered any special treatment by way of line jumping. The wedding party didn’t get to cut the line for their celebratory smoked meats lunch reception — they still had to wait for the restaurant’s opening at 11 a.m.

This is a 3-part story:
1) "Austin Parks Department rangers are investigating reports of a possible mountain lion sighting on the Turkey Creek Trail at Emma Long Park. Several hikers spotted the animal at about 12:30 p.m. Sunday, as they were hiking on the trail off of City Park Road in northwest Austin, officials said."

“It was huge. We thought it was a full-on lion at first,” said Michael Law, who was hiking with his wife and two dogs at the top of a mesa when they saw the animal about 20 feet ahead of them. “It was the biggest thing, like a Great Dane but twice as heavy. We both did a double take and slowly backed up and then ran for our lives,” Law said. “I think we ran 4 miles at a 7-minute pace. It was nuts.”

2) That mountain lion reported by hikers on the Turkey Creek Trail at Emma Long Metropolitan Park last weekend? Turns out it wasn’t a mountain lion after all, but a stuffed target from the nearby Austin Archery Club. And not even a mountain lion target, at that. It was a cheetah, according to officials at the Austin Parks and Recreation Department.

3) So the question is - if I go walking in Emma Long Park, is it likely that a member of the Austin Archery Club is going to mistake me for a stuffed mountain lion/cheetah and put a Carbon Express Maxima hunting arrow in some important part of my anatomy?

The answer is no, according to Don Ferguson of the Austin Archery Club, if one stays on the marked trail and pays attention to warning signs.

“Targets are placed so shooting is directed back into the range, not out,” Ferguson said. “Anyone who wandered into the ranges would be in back of the shooter and out of harm’s way, but they would be seen if they were in front of a shooter.”

Right. Tell that to the mountain lion/cheetah.

Monday Meandering 2.8.2016

And another Super Bowl has come and gone. I'm reminded of "Hollywood" Henderson's (I know - some will have to Google him) quote, "If it's the ultimate game, why are they going to play it again next year?"

I must say that I was very happy for the way this particular game turned out. I'm not exactly a Cam Newton hater, but it was really a vindication of sorts that Peyton - thanks to incredible effort from his team - emerged the victor. In a sport filled with shallow and posturing individuals - not to mention a handful of outright thugs - Peyton stands tall as a person of character and credibility.

If this was his last rodeo, the Sheriff got to ride off into the sunset after saving the day.

Now. About that half-time. I guess the best thing I can say is that Barb and I are not the demographic target for the Super Bowl half-time show. And only a couple of commercials appealed to us. The others were just weird.

One sobering thought about the Super Bowl. Barb and I have seen them all. Time flys when you're having fun.

And just so you know, we partied with the best of them during the game. Here's a photo of our game-time snacks.

Plus, we had jicama "fries!" Do we know how to have a good time, or what?

Monday Meanderings - 2.1.2016

Sipping coffee on the patio Saturday morning, on a balmy 73 degree day, I paused to think of all the folks still navigating around mounds of snow and slush.  Okay, it was only about a 10 second pause. Sorry.

Woke up the other morning unable to talk. Cedar pollen has been off the charts and I had a brief encounter with Ceder Fever. Barb seized that opportunity to go on a "silence must mean assent" campaign. She swears that she never noticed me waving my arms and shaking my head "No."

The only good thing to come from my bout of laryngitis was a fondness for mugs of hot tea and honey. The voice is back, but I think a daily cup or two of Twining Black Breakfast Tea laced with honey is here to stay. Blimey.

We watched the Texas Lady Longhorns win number 1,000 in the school's 42 year history of women's basketball. Only 4 other programs have that many wins, and we likely will pass one of those soon.

Most of those wins (783, to be exact) were during Jody Conradt's career, and we probably saw somewhere around 500 of those in person during the 20 or so years we had season tickets. Under Coach Goestenkor's tenure the program went through a slump, but the current coach and team are quite good. Things are looking up.

After the first of every year the City of Austin mails out a colorful schedule showing the dates for trash and recycling pick-up for the different sections of the city. We got ours, as usual, and then a week or so later, we got another - corrected - calendar.

Took a while to figure out what was wrong with the first one. Seems someone overlooked Leap Year, so beginning in March, all the dates were wrong.

And it looks like I may have to do all the grocery shopping by myself for a while. There are some things that are just too hard to resist around our house.

The Hall of Fame Relative - Stories for my grandchildren

An item that my sister forwarded pointed out that today, January 29, is the birth date of one of our more famous relatives, Al Stricklin. I wrote about Al several years ago, but in honor of his birthday, I'll re-post a portion of that blog.

Al is a 3rd cousin on my mother's side, once removed. If you are a grandchild, he is your cousin too, but 5 times removed (and no, I don't understand the seconds and thirds and the removals, but my genealogy program does).

Alton Stricklin was born January 29, 1908 in Antioch, Johnson County, Texas, son of Zebedee Meeks Stricklin and Annie Lee Benton. He died October 15, 1986 in Cleburne, Johnson County Texas, just a few miles away from his birthplace.

There is a note in my mother's handwriting attached to the record: it says, "Al Stricklin played piano with Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, and was a professional musician for more than 50 years." There's a whole lot more to the story. In fact, I found that Al and I had a similar experience while in college. Here's a story from the Texas State Historical Association web site:

The "first commercial group" Stricklin played with was called the Rio Grande Serenaders. It was a standard Dixieland band with trumpet, trombone, clarinet, drums, banjo, and Al playing piano. After he graduated from Grandview High School in 1927, Stricklin spent two years at Weatherford Junior College near Fort Worth. In Weatherford he played with both the Rio Grande Serenaders and another jazz band called the Texans. After two years at the junior college he entered Baylor University, not to study music, but to major in history. [Needing] money to pay expenses at Baylor he began playing in a jazz band called the Unholy Three. When Samuel P. Brooks learned the Unholy Three had played for dancing at the Knights of Columbus Hall, "he suspended the band from the university." Dean W. Sims Allen interceded for them, and "Dr. Brooks let us back in," Stricklin remarked.

In 1930 Al Stricklin was the assistant program director at radio station KFJZ in Fort Worth. A frightened secretary cried out one morning: "Mr. Stricklin, will you please come in here a moment." He rushed into the reception room and saw "three guys standing there, and they were hungry looking, and they needed a shave. One of them had something in a flour sack; the other one had a guitar strapped across his back, hanging over his back like he was carrying a rifle or something." Stricklin was almost as startled as the secretary. "It was Mr. Bob Wills," he said, "with his fiddle in a flour sack." Wills asked Stricklin for an audition. Wills and his band then performed on KFJZ. "They called two days later from the post office and said there was so much mail for the station one man couldn't carry it, better bring a pickup or something." Stricklin had given Wills a break, and when the management of the Aladdin Lamp Company learned of the success of the Wills Fiddle Band on KFJZ, the firm sponsored the band under the name Aladdin Laddies over WBAP, a much more powerful station.* 

Stricklin went on to play piano with Bob Wills from 1935 until 1941 when the band broke up because of the WWII. Wills died in the early '70's, but not before the reunited band recorded a double album that received a Grammy award. After Will's death, Stricklin and other band members reunited as "The Bob Wills Original Texas Playboys" was named the band of the year by the Country Music Association.

Other honors received were Instrumental Group of the Year in 1977 by the Country Music Association and Touring Band of the Year, 1978, by the Academy of Country Music. Stricklin is in the Country Music Hall of Fame. After his death,  he was inducted into the Texas Western Swing Hall of Fame in 1990 and in 1999 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, honored as an early influence of the genre.

Interestingly, my sister says that my mother was somewhat embarrassed about her cousin, the piano player in a Western swing band. I wonder what she thought about Charles Arthur "Pretty Boy" Floyd, a 5th cousin, once (and permanently) removed?

*Charles R. Townsend, "STRICKLIN, ALTON MEEKS," Handbook of Texas Online (http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fstbx),  Published by the Texas State Historical Association.