Tag: Texas

What’s In a Name? (You don’t want to know!)

IMG_2389 for blog_edited-2Let me start off with a disclaimer.

I’m going to repeat an entertaining legend, but I don’t really know how much truth it contains.  I first heard it while living in the city of Pampa, in the Texas Panhandle, back in the late ‘70s. I don’t know the origin of this legend and since I’m not a native of that area, I have, as they say, “no dog in this hunt…”

Let’s start with what we do know.  Back in the 1870s (no, not the same ‘70s I mentioned above) a settlement grew out of a buffalo hunter camp about twenty miles from present-day Pampa. (Technically, they are bison, not buffalo, but let’s not split hairs on this one.)  It was a rough-and-tumble kind of place through which a lot of well-known people passed.  About the same time, the Army established a fort in the area.  According to a website I found (link below) one of the famous people who passed through acquired a lifelong memory of his time there.  Bat Masterson, of Dodge City fame, is described as walking with a limp.  It seems that he acquired that limp in a gun fight with an Army sergeant over a card game and dance hall girl.  The only survivor, Masterson, had been shot in the pelvis.  If you find a reference, you’ll see that the altercation occurred in Sweetwater, Texas.  But it’s not the Sweetwater you think…

This Panhandle town had been established on the banks of the Sweetwater Creek so it naturally assumed the name of Sweetwater.  This is where the story gets more entertaining.

In 1879, Wheeler County was established and Sweetwater was the natural choice as the county seat.  The problem came when they petitioned for a post office.  The petition was rejected because there was already another Sweetwater, Texas – the one you know.  That obviously created a problem because the town had been using that name for a few years.

Now, for the story as I heard it:

After the town was denied the use of “Sweetwater,” and while trying to decide on a new name, an old Indian chief suggested that the town use the Indian term for sweet water – mobeetie.  It was quickly agreed upon, approved, and Mobeetie, Texas was born.  Sometime later, it was discovered that the old chief had the last laugh.  Mobeetie didn’t actually mean “sweet water” – it meant “buffalo dung.”

It’s a good story, but I didn’t give it much credibility.

I don’t remember how it came up in the conversation, but I told the story to a friend over breakfast the other day.  Afterward, I realized it might be fun to write up for Casual Comments.  I started doing a little research since all I knew about the town was the name, location, the legend and that I remembered seeing a sign on the highway that points one direction for Mobeetie and another for Old Mobeetie.  I found a great website that offers the town’s history – in much greater detail.  Much to my surprise, it told the same story of the name with a little more detail and a couple of minor differences!  So, now I’ve confirmed the validity of the story.  After all, it’s on the Internet, so it must be true…!

To read more, visit this really interesting website:

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/tx-mobeetie.html

Cheap Thrills in an Expensive Car

Porsches are great automobiles! They are very high quality and probably saved my life – on two separate occasions. That particular one was painted “Crystal Blue”. (The same color as the Porsche 917 featured in the Steve McQueen movie “LeMans”.) It had mechanical fuel-injection, dry-sump oiler, 5-speed manual transmission, and was air-cooled (all Porsches and VWs were at that time). And it was FAST!

The problem with high-performance cars is that they can be a handful and can get you into trouble faster than you can blink! Porsches are well-balanced for superior handling, but the 911-series is rear-engined. That’s something you can’t forget because they can swap ends quickly and suddenly you’re out of control or facing the wrong direction!

July 3rd. My future wife and I were westbound on I-40 in Amarillo. It was about 5:00 pm and a week day. Traffic in Amarillo is never very heavy, but with the holiday almost upon us, a lot of vehicles were passing through town. It was sunny, hot and dry.

Uncharacteristically, I was driving the speed limit (70 mph), in the middle lane as we topped the bridge over a cross street. In the congestion, a slower-moving car in the right lane moved into my lane as I was about to pass him. I quickly veered toward the left lane to keep from hitting him. That was my first mistake – moving BEFORE looking to see if it was clear. It wasn’t…

That’s when I made my second mistake. Seeing a car, I immediately cut back to the right, over-correcting a bit, and was now heading into the right-hand lane and toward the guardrail designed to keep vehicles from sailing off of the bridge. Now the adrenaline was pumping and I made my third mistake! I cut the wheel sharply back to the left to try to stay in the right-hand lane – and on the bridge. A little too much adrenaline in that move and I over-corrected again! At the same time, I tapped the brakes to slow things down – mistake number four. That’s when the rear bias of the engine weight plus the braking action on the front end conspired against me. A lesser car would probably have flipped over, but not the Porsche! Suddenly, we were in the center lane again, skidding backwards, looking at the cars and semis coming over the top of the bridge. That’s when time slowed down…

In that adrenaline-induced timeline, I realized what had to be done. First, shift to neutral and let the engine speed drop. Then, I slammed the shifter into Reverse, cut the wheel to the right and backed through the small gap in the left lane traffic and onto the narrow shoulder where the center guardrail separated us from the eastbound traffic. Just enough room to again be facing west, I put it in 1st, steered back into the left lane and burned rubber! I pulled off at the next exit, stopped, got out, and looked the car over – especially the Michelins. No damage! It was as much my fault as his, but I don’t think the guy in the car who started it all even knew what had happened behind him!

The guy I almost hit in the left lane pulled off and asked if we were okay and my fiancée’s  comment was, “Just like an amusement park ride…”

She still married me. I think it was for the car…

Hair today…gone tomorrow…

There exists a photograph, a snapshot really, of a young man standing with his mother on the southwest rim of the Palo Duro Canyon in the Texas Panhandle. Taken in the early 1970s, his hairstyle is completely appropriate for the time.  His hair was long, but not overly so.  On a normal day, it would have been combed and parted and neat. He was tall – six-foot three – thin, slightly tanned, and his hair was naturally a dark brown color which matched his mustache and very dark brown eyes.

That day, however, his hair was sun-bleached to an almost red color – not uncommon whenever he spent some time in the sun. The Texas Panhandle is largely a prairie and notorious for things such as its hot, very dry climate, and constant wind. The average daily wind is 14 mph. That may not sound like much, but there are a number of days when the wind doesn’t blow enough to speak of, so to average out at 14, means there are days when it really blows! There are occasions when the measured wind velocity between Amarillo’s downtown buildings hits 100+ mph. Those times tend to be a bit expensive for the insurance companies who pay for the damages done. The hot, dry summer wind that day was apparently a little above the average and as evidenced by his hair. It was wild…unkempt even – the result of all of these factors and the fact that it was naturally very curly. It looked like a reddish “Fro”.

Ask anyone with naturally curly hair if they like it and more often than not, you’ll get a negative response – especially the younger crowd. It is hard to control – it literally seems to have a mind of its own. It is harder to cut because the curls may be tighter one day than the next. So the hairstyle can vary with the humidity, the weather, the wind, the way it was slept on, etc., etc. At times it even seems to vary with owner’s attitude that day – or maybe it’s the attitude that varies based on how attractive the hair looks… Either way, the result doesn’t vary – it is still difficult to deal with. But maybe not for much longer…

In the July, 2016 volume of National Geographic magazine, there is a short article discussing some of the characteristics of curly hair. According to the article, studies published in the journal of the American Physical Society describe the hair shaft as a very complex structure – influenced by gravity, texture and the shape of the follicle it grows from. Apparently, an asymmetrical follicle produces curly hair and the longer the hair grows, the more complex the structure. The more complex the structure, the more susceptible to heat. So Purdue University is investigating the styling temperatures best suited to maintaining healthy curly hair.

Having been that young man in the photograph and having not used heat to style my hair, I can attest to the fact that it did not contribute to having little remaining volume or that my much shorter hair is now controllable by a fine-toothed comb…

This just sounded so familiar…

Back in Austin, Texas for the first time in a while.  We lived here a number of years ago and it is good to be back just to see the sights again and go by our favorite “haunts.”  One of them – the Congress Avenue bridge and the area around it is amazing!

First, if you are willing to brave the rather busy traffic and step out into the middle of the road (NOT recommended!) and look north, you are greeted with a great photo op of the Texas Capitol building!  It is actually taller than the U.S. Capitol, but it seems, contrary to popular belief (especially in the Lone Star state), it is not the tallest capitol building in the U.S. – that honor apparently goes to Louisiana.

Then, at dusk, if you stand near the south end of the bridge on the east side by the river bank, you will witness the emergence of the bats that live under the bridge as they swarm out to fill their tiny stomachs by reducing the insect population.  That colony of bats is estimated to consist of up to 1.5 million critters – they eat a LOT of bugs!

On this particular occasion, following the bat-watching exercise, we journeyed to the north side of Austin to Applebee’s in Cedar Park.  Sitting in the restaurant late Sunday evening with some of my family, and having finished some excellent salads, we were just relaxing and talking about things in general.  The music being piped in was an old favorite (although I never cared for the sentiments expressed) – “American Woman”… I was enjoying listening to it when my son-in-law quietly commented on some of the conversation between two young guys sitting in the booth behind them.

They were apparently talking about a number of things, and as I strained my ears, I was pretty sure I heard them discussing what band recorded “American Woman.”  One was pretty sure it was Ratt and some conversation that I couldn’t hear/understand ensued.  A couple of minutes later, as we were standing up to leave, I heard one of them say he thought it might be REO Speedwagon.  Being an eavesdropper, and a nosy one at that, as I passed by their table, I asked, “Are y’all talking about who recorded the song that’s playing?”

“Yeah.”

Trying to be helpful, I just told them the name of the band.  It took an unexpected turn…

“Guess Who”

“That’s what we’re trying to do…”  Just a slight touch of irritation there…

“No, no…that’s the name of the band…Guess Who.”

“Oh, right…that’s right, I thought it was from one of those one-hit wonder groups like that…”

“Actually, Guess Who was a well-known band that had a lot of hits back in the 70’s.”

“Really?”

“Yeah…”

It was all I could do to only smile as we wished them a good evening and exited the restaurant…

To quote the great Yogi Berra, “It’s like déjà vu all over again.”  (See my post dated May 11, 2016, “New is Old? Old is New?”

Texas Panhandle

A recent trip to Amarillo, in the Texas Panhandle, brought back memories of younger days. My wife and I met and married there – and one of our daughters was born there.  It is a great town…city…but often overlooked as people pass through on I-40 heading east or west, and to a lesser extent, I-27 as people go north or south.  It is usually seen as a good stopping point to spend the night because the next larger cities are 100 miles south, 280 miles west, 240 miles east, or 360 miles north.  Not enough people pause long enough to explore the area.

For those unfamiliar with the term or the geographical region, the Texas Panhandle is the northern rectangle of the state that consists of 26 counties bordered by the states of Oklahoma and New Mexico.  (Not to be confused with the country of Mexico that borders the southern edge of Texas.)

About twenty miles south of Amarillo is the Palo Duro Canyon.  Seventy miles long, averaging about six miles wide, and up to 1,000 feet deep, it is second only to the Grand Canyon!  In the canyon itself are a number of things to see and do – camping, hiking, horseback riding, and a musical drama called “Texas” which is performed in a beautiful amphitheater with a backdrop of a section of the canyon wall.  The entire cast are amateurs but they are very good!  It is an entertaining play – well worth the time, effort and cost to see.

But it is the canyon itself, combined with the indigenous fauna, that is the real draw.  The rocks vary from the normal sandy-colored dirt of the Panhandle at the very top and the off-white of the Ogallala aquifer just below, to the iron-oxide rich red claystone near the bottom.  In between, varying rock layers elicit streaks of white, gray, yellow and even lavender.  One of the prominent features in the canyon is the formation named the “Lighthouse”.  I have hiked up to the base of the Lighthouse…if you want to call it a hike.  It is actually a nice walk across fairly even terrain.  You can choose to observe it from your car and it is still impressive, but either way, never more impressive than with a typical Panhandle sunset.

Panhandle sunsets are often spectacular.  The sky, with no mountains and few other obstructions, stretches from horizon to horizon. Add a few clouds and as the sun retreats from view, the colors are amazing!  Bright gold in the west, with patches of orange shading gradually darker as your gaze traverses toward the east.  All on a background of blue darkening to indigo as time slips away…but in the canyon…

The last rays of the sun seem to ignite a beacon in the Lighthouse and along the rim of the canyon where the Ogallala lies.  The bright rust-red rock below the rim begins its daily journey to darker hues, passing through ruby to wine and ultimately to a dark, dark mahogany as another day draws to a close and it is time to rest and restore your soul for the morrow.