Category: 254 Counties in Texas

Mercifully, we awoke early on this, the last day of this trip, to discover that the sun was shining, the roads were mostly dry, and that we had squeaked by the inclement weather of the previous evening.  Here’s the day’s plan:

We had a quick breakfast in Gilmer and headed for the Upshur County courthouse:

Little Gilmer is a modest place, but it punches way above its weight in being the hometown of Blues legend Freddie King, crooner Johnny Mathis, and rocker Don Henley of the Eagles.  Sumpin’ in the water here…

Being now homeward bound, we stopped less frequently, but the countryside between Gilmer and Quitman is gorgeous – what I’d call “horse country” – rolling, green, well-manicured, and VERY expensive looking.  Quitman, seat of Wood County, is also the birthplace of Ms. Sissy Spacek.

From Quitman down country roads through Mineola to Canton, seat of Van Zandt County.  (No, not Townes van Zandt, unfortunately…)  On the way to Canton, we passed the site of the First Monday Trade Days site.  It is a huge flea market-like affair, and we were grateful it wasn’t the first Monday.  Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow once lived briefly in a Canton hotel.

And then from Canton, east to Kaufman, seat of Kaufman County, and the last stop on this adventure.

Kaufman was the first place that Bonnie Parker was ever incarcerated, and was also the site of a German POW camp during WWII.  Astonishingly, Kaufman County is also home to the Southwest Vipassana Medication Center, descended from the “home base” of Vipassana meditation in Igatpuri, Maharashtra, India.  I used to live near there and friends on their way to Igatpuri would stay with us in Bombay.  I hope to do my first 10-day course at this place in early 2019.  Link is here:

Dhamma Siri

So from Kaufman, we headed southwest, Bobby Joe back to his home in Robinson, south of Waco, and me all the way to Wimberley.  The rain caught up with me twice, once torrential, and I had to pay for the good luck of the night before.  No free lunch.

But another great trip completed successfully…  I love doing this.

Bobby Joe and I re-entered the realm of consciousness around 10 AM.  By that time I’ve usually had breakfast and done three courthouses!  Partnership is plenty of fun, but not all that efficient for task orientation.  😀

Here’s what we accomplished this day:

We messed around in Palestine once we got re-oriented.  “Palestine”, incidentally, is pronounced Pal-us-steen, not Pal-us-stine, making one wonder again how people ever learn English.

First stop – the courthouse:

We then hunted around town for a traditional breakfast joint…

We finally gave up on finding a “home-style” breakfast and went to the IHOP, distinguished for the world’s slowest breakfast service.

Bobby Joe and I finally began our riding day around noon (!), but before we could get out of Palestine, I spied this lawnmower graveyard.  My father was obsessed with lawnmowers his entire life – and these pix are in his honor:

While I was out photographing them, a man came racing up in an old American land yacht to inquire if I wanted to buy any of them.  Luckily I was on a bike and had to pass on the temptation…

More of Palestine on the way out of town…

We FINALLY got underway, headed due east to Rusk, seat of Cherokee County (the Cherokee all having been removed and relocated to reservations, mostly in Oklahoma, where one of them seems to have contributed to Elizabeth Warren’s gene pool).

Northeast from Rusk to Henderson, seat of…uh..Rusk County.  Don’t ask me…

Along the way, I finally got a chance to photograph one of those neatly trimmed passages of the power lines through the pine trees – ubiquitous in the Big Thicket/Piney Woods area (which we are now back in…).

Conscious of the late start, we blew on from Henderson due east to Carthage, seat of Panola County and namesake, presumably, of Carthage, Greece.  One of a number of so-named towns in this part of Texas.

We did not get to see it, but Carthage is home to the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame, and both the great Tex Ritter and Jim Reeves were born and raised in the environs of Carthage, considered their home town.  It is also, implausibly, the home town of Mildred Fay Jefferson, the first African-American woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School.

Watching the sun headed down, we raced northwest to Longview, seat of Gregg County.

 

We did not get to do much in Longview, as the day was almost over before it had really begun, so we headed due east to Marshall, on the border with Louisiana, and seat of Harrison County.  Marshall was once the gateway to Texas, and a major hub of the Texas-based Confederacy.  In fact when Sam Houston declined to swear allegiance to the Confederacy, and lost his job as Governor of Texas, he was replaced with Marshall’s own Edward Clark.  Marshall was also the capital of Missouri’s Confederate government-in-exile.

Marshall has a lot of nicknames, including “Cultural Capital of East Texas” (what if that’s true?), and “The Athens of Texas” (notwithstanding the REAL Athens, Texas being about a hundred miles to the west…

One thing for certain, though, and clearly the reason for being called the “Athens” of Texas, is the H U G E central plaza and equally gigantic courthouse:

Marshall also claims to be the “Birthplace of Boogie Woogie”, which I guess is a good thing that partially offsets its sad record as being one of the leading centers of black male lynching in Texas.  I would not be surprised to learn that some of the boogie-woogiers did double duty as lynchees…

Y.A. Tittle, legendary QB of the San Francisco 49’ers, and George Foreman (BBQ grill salesman…oh, yeah, and Heavyweight Boxing Champion of the World) are from Marshall.

The sun had now set, and we set out from Marshall to the north, toward Jefferson, seat of Marion County.  This turned out to be the surprise of the entire trip.

The first surprise was that there were no motels on the north side of Marshall, so we just kept driving into the gloaming.

The second surprise came when we were about 3 miles from Jefferson – an INTENSE wave of humidity that was not rain turned all of our clothing, helmets, bike surfaces into a glistening, clammy mess.  I’ve spent much of my life in tropical conditions, but never before encountered a transition this stark.

The third surprise was Jefferson itself.  I had never even heard of it, but it is like a perfectly preserved little Texas-Louisiana river town from the 19th or early 20th century.  We went first to the courthouse, which was shuttered for impending repairs, but we did the photo deed anyway, with Bobby Joe’s Harley and my BMW glaring at each other:

I then wandered around town on foot – these are the best of the MANY photos I shot there in the fading light…

Vernon Dalhart’s version (1924) of “Wreck” was supposedly the first million-selling country music release in American history, and the song has been recorded by everybody who’s anybody in country music, including Cash, Woodie Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and…the list goes on and on.

The fourth surprise in Jefferson was that it was almost dark, and there was nowhere for us to stay.   We headed west out of town through intense blackness and towering pine forest.  We could see lightning on the western horizon – we were driving straight into it but there was no other place to go, other than sleep in the woods.  The lightning intensified as we drove, with huge bolts appearing right down the tunnel made by the pine trees, and each flash would illuminate all of the little reflective markers embedded on the centerline of the road.  It was hairy in the extreme.

Our luck held out – the actual rain started about 2 minutes before we got to Gilmer and, barely wet, we whipped under cover at a gas station and waited while the storm raged.  That only lasted about 10 minutes, during which we made a motel reservation that was barely a mile away.  When the rain stopped, we scurried to the motel, where the lady proprietor allowed us to keep the bikes on the covered porch.  We ate road food from the gas station opposite the motel, drank two (and two only) beers, and went to sleep early listening to Bobby Joe’s Bluetooth speaker and fine selection of weird music.

It was a magical end to a day that had begun with a rough hangover.  Lesson learned.  Welcome to Gilmer.  I will do the road from Gilmer to Jefferson again one day, in the light…

Abigail stuffed us with breakfast and Bobby Joe and I readied ourselves to set off together, our first bike trip as a duo!

Here’s the plan for the day:

Our first stop was to be Gatesville, seat of Coryell County, but we took the long way around, passing through Crawford, where George W. Bush had (and has) his Texas White House.  I had never figured out exactly where Crawford was, but now I know.

Apparently the Bush Ranch is unmarked, so instead of looking for it, we headed on to Gatesville, famous for hosting the majority of penal facilities for Texas women, including their Death Row.

On the road from Gatesville to Meridian, seat of the gloriously beautiful Bosque County, we came upon a meeting of the local Democratic Committee, planning their next steps to support Beto…

We passed the women’s prison, and they were out working on the prison grounds, but I did not dare stopping for a photo shoot.  Texas State Correctional Service – an equal opportunity employer.

Route 182 that runs from outside Gatesville almost to Meridian is one of the most beautiful, and fun, motorcycle rides in Texas.  Highly recommended (but keep it a secret).

From Meridian, we headed east toward Hillsboro, seat of Hill County.  The movie Bottle Rocket, with Owen Wilson, was filmed here.  Even more interestingly, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, both Texans from near Dallas, carried out a robbery in 1932 in Hillsboro in which a store owner was killed – though Clyde was only the driver, he wound up being accused of murder.

Willie Nelson is from Abbott, which is in Hill County.

From Hillsboro, northwest to Cleburne, seat of Johnson County, and located on the southern side of the Fort Worth-Dallas metro area.   Along the way, an amusing religious reminder.

Lifelike and interesting murals in Cleburne…

From Cleburne, due East to Waxahachie, seat of Ellis County.  What an eye-opener this little place was!  Beginning with the courthouse:

Waxahachie is an unbelievably prosperous little town – called Ginger Bread City because of Victorian architecture and Gingerbread-style homes.  As we were driving in, home after immaculate home lined the street, making you feel like you were riding in on a red carpet.  A place to go back to, for sure.

I could not figure out how this prosperous little oasis came to be, but it turns out that Waxahachie has become a bedroom community for the big-money folks from Dallas and Fort Worth.  Hence the showcase homes…

From Waxahachie, south-east to Corsicana, seat of Navarro County.   Named by Navarro (who gave the county its name) for the island of Corsica, where his father had been born.

Corsicana was the birthplace of Lefty Frizzell, David “Fathead” Newman, the jazz saxophonist, and the quirky Billy Joe Shaver.

From Corsicana, due east to the seat of Henderson County, Athens.

With lengthening shadows, we headed due east to Tyler, seat of Smith County, expecting that to be our final stop of the day.  We managed to get a photo of the courthouse by the dying sun…

…and then we set off to the southwest toward Palestine, seat of Anderson County.  We expected to find a motel and liquor store to get some beer and a small bottle of sipping whisky, but we drove…and drove…we passed Palestine Lake…

…we found a liquor store but the lady behind the counter admitted that she would not personally stay in any of the local motels…so we drove on and on until we arrived in Palestine, well after dark.  But we immediately found a good motel, with a restaurant next door so that we could respect Abigail’s admonition not to drink and ride the bikes, and settled in for a great evening.

An evening during which Bobby Joe and I caught up on 40-odd years of tales, fueled by all the beer and all the whiskey.  We did not get to bed until 2:30 – at least that’s what Bobby Joe says…

 

The objective for day 1 of this trip was to wind up sometime in the late afternoon at the home of my old friends Bob and Abigail Sebastian in Waco, Texas.  So I left Wimberley and headed north on I35 – a break with my usual practice of staying on the back roads, but I had a lot of ground to cover.

Here’s the map of Day 1:

First stop was Belton, seat of Bell County.  Like virtually every single Anglo settlement in Texas, Belton grew up in areas that were originally inhabited by Native Americans – here they were Tonkawa, Lipan Apache, Wacos, Kiowa, and Comanche.  As was customary at that time, the Anglos said to the Indians:  “Thanks for your hospitality, now get out.”  It’s a sad refrain that provides the background music for that mid-19th century version of making America great.

But Belton itself is a pretty little town with a very nice limestone courthouse…

…and a nice little movie theater…the Beltonian.

Atypically for a Texas town of that time, Belton had a sizeable minority that opposed slavery and secession from the Union – there was strong support for Sam Houston, who gave up the governorship because of his opposition to secession.  After the war ended unhappily for the Confederacy, the losers got even by lynching some of the Union sympathizers.

After a little bit more of I35, I finally got back off the beaten path and went next to the little town of Marlin, seat of Falls County.  Marlin had once been known for its hot mineral water springs, which attracted tourists and, in due course, Conrad Hilton, who built his 8th Hilton Hotel in Marlin – it’s now defunct.  Several major league baseball teams held spring training there, I guess because of the mineral waters (what other explanation could there be?).

In order to liven this blog up, in Marlin I hit on the bright idea of “jumping” for the courthouse pix.  This is the first of those ill-advised experiments…

Apparently the citizens of Marlin held their sheriff in high regard, as they had several decorated 55-gallon drums with his image on them:

In commemoration of the life-giving waters…

and…

From Marlin, I continued along back roads leading to, and going through, places I had never heard of before.  Such as Bremond:

Unfortunately I missed the Polish Pickle Run, but continued along my way to the town of Franklin, seat of Robertson County.  Along the way, the ever-trusty BMW crossed 30,000 miles, recorded for posterity below:

Franklin is a tiny speck of a town, but with a lovely little courthouse:

Boy, that jumping really adds to the narrative, doesn’t it?  (Don’t worry, I did eventually come to my senses, though not soon enough…)

Turning Northeast for a long drive through the country to Fairfield, seat of Freestone County.  Fairfield’s claim to fame is as the birthplace of the great jazz trumpeter Kenny Dorham, who played with Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk and everyone who had a name from that era.  Now it’s home to some funky rustic art:

Hey, it seemed like a good idea at the time…

Now headed back west, to Groesbeck, seat of Limestone County.  Groesbeck is the town closest to the hugely important historical site called Old Fort Parker, which was actually a family settlement on what was then the bleeding edge of Anglo encroachment into Comanche territory.  Cynthia Ann Parker was captured from this “fort”, and wound up being the wife of the Comanche chief, Peta Nocona, and mother of the last of the Comanche chieftains, Quanah Parker, who surrendered the remains of his band, undefeated, at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.  Cynthia Ann Parker was forcibly recaptured, against her will, by Texas Rangers.  She attempted to rejoin her Comanche family, and eventually starved herself to death because of her “captivity” in the white community that she rejected.

Groesbeck is also home to Bob Wills, the legend of Texas Swing music – interestingly, I did not see anything prominent that claimed Bob Wills, though I also did not see much of anything for Waylon Jennings in Littlefield in the Panhandle.

While taking pix in front of the courthouse, what was either a baby, or injured, turkey vulture practically landed on me.  I was thinking Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds”…  😀

Continuing west to the last stop of the day, Waco, seat of McClennan County.  Waco is named for the Hueco (same sound) band of Wichita Indians who were displaced by the Anglo arrival.  It’s kind of disconcerting to note the number of instances in modern-day Texas (and America) that evoke the people who were driven from their homes, or exterminated, and then commemorated in place names, coins, and sports teams.

The soft drink Dr. Pepper was invented in Waco, and of course David Koresh and the Branch Dravidians were incinerated there in 1993 by Attorney General Janet Reno.  Additional fame came from the 2015 shoot-out between local biker gangs and the police, with 9 bikers dead.  It’s not certain that the real story of what happened there has been told.

Hank Thompson, country musician, was from Waco, and Ted Nugent (!) lives here.  Leon Jaworski, the federal prosecutor who brought down the Nixon administration during Watergate, was born and raised here.

Here’s the courthouse, no jumping…

Chisholm Trail went through Waco…

After a brief foray through Waco – a place to revisit, I headed over to my friends’ home and spent a great evening with them before heading out on Day Two…

So the final day of the East Texas circuit began in Madisonville – here’s the itinerary:

With all the rain from the previous days, the earth was steamy and beautiful on the back road ride to Huntsville, seat of Walker county.

And then, upon arrival in Huntsville, there arrayed in all its glory is the single thing that Huntsville is most famous for – the Penitentiary.  There’s even a Texas Prison Museum.

Well, adding to the list of obstacles in getting my courthouse pictures, in Huntsville I (surprisingly, actually) I encountered my first law enforcement obstacle.

I had been lucky in getting to the courthouse before business had cranked up for the day, and there was only one car in the way – I could get it out of the picture by positioning the bike part-way on the Handicapped zone, which I have done scores of times without anyone saying “boo”.

So I’m getting the camera and tripod ready, when an officious-looking young cop comes striding purposefully out of the courthouse.  I figured he was interested in what I was doing, which has previously been the case.  Here’s the exchange that took place:

Me:  Good morning, officer.

Him:  Do you have a Handicapped sticker on that motorcycle.

Me:  Laughing, no sir, I did not even realize that it was possible to get such a thing.  It’d be hard to manage a motorcycle if you were handicapped.

Him:  You have to move that bike.  If handicapped people need to use that space, you’ll be in the way.

Me:  Understood.  I’m not going to park.  I’m going to shoot a single picture that will take between 10 and 20 seconds, and if someone comes during that time, I’ll move instantly.

Him:  No, you will move it now.

Me:  In the amount of time we’ve been talking, I’d have already taken the photo and moved on.

Him:  You aren’t getting it.  There is a $500 fine for parking in the handicapped parking, and you are going to move the bike right now.

Me:   Wordlessly, taking the bike off it’s center stand and moving it no more than 12 inches so the front tire does not touch the handicapped parking line.

Him:  Wordlessly, having exercised his authority, he turns on his heel and walks back into the courthouse.

I’m incredulous, notwithstanding the fact that he was right – I should NOT have been obstructing the handicapped parking, though it would have been for 10 to 20 seconds.  All to move maybe a foot.  I guess I’m lucky I’m not out $500, or shot in the back, or writing this from the Pen…

Huntsville is quite a bustling town – I guess the Pen is good for business.

Unbeknownst to me, Huntsville is closely associated with Sam Houston, who died here in 1863.  Sam Houston was an amazing figure.  He was a US Representative and governor in Tennessee, then he came to Texas and defeated Santa Anna at San Jacinto, establishing Texas as an independent Republic.  He was the first and third President of the Republic of Texas, and led Texas to join the United States in 1845, following which he served both as a US Senator and Governor of the Texas.

Of greatest interest to me is that he refused to join the Confederacy when Texas voted to secede in 1861, and accepted to be removed from the Governorship rather than become a Confederate.  He was offered troops by the Union, but rather than add to the bloodshed, he simply stepped down from his offices and retired in Huntsville.  There are plaques on the town square that identify sites from which he would sit and whittle wood.  It’s easy to be proud of someone like Sam Houston, after whom my home town is named.

Meandering to the west, back into the grassy rolling hills where I spent a large portion of my youth.  First stop, Anderson, seat of Grimes County.   Beautiful scenery along the way:

 

Arrival in Anderson:  what a stunner of a little courthouse!

Heading west, still, passing through Navasota…

You may recall from the discussion on the previous day’s blog that the El Camino Real, or Old San Antonio Road, had been first trafficked in the late 17th century when the Mexican government was trying to hunt down the Frenchman Rene Robert Cavelier, born in Rouen, and believed to be operating a French fort in defiance of Mexican hegemony.

Well, right on the main drag of Navasota is a statue of none other than Rene Robert Cavelier, AKA La Salle. The inscription says that he “was treacherously slain by his own men near this spot in March, 1687”.  A fuller record of his exploits includes his having become a Jesuit at one time, though he left the order before being ordained because of “moral weaknesses”.  Recent Catholic history suggests that such weaknesses may not have required him to recuse himself in these days.

He made extensive explorations all over North America and Canada, and eventually claimed the entire Mississippi watershed for France, calling it La Louisiane after King Louis XIV.  He had many mishaps along the Texas Gulf Coast while trying to locate the mouth of the Mississippi, the final one of which was the mutiny of his remaining men.  He was tricked, ambushed, and killed by Pierre Duhaut, who was subsequently killed to avenge the murder of La Salle.

While there is some dispute about whether it was near Navasota that La Salle came to his end, it’s as good a place as any to begin an exploration of this fascinating slice of Texas history.

Another fascinating slice lay just ahead, in Washington County, of which Brenham is the seat.  It so happens that the two places that dominated my youth were Harris County, where was born, lived, and went to school, and Washington County, where my grandfather had a ranch between Burton and Carmine, and where I lived out every fantasy known to Texas boys of that time.  So when I’m back in Washington County, there’s some kind of “energy field” where, for me, the universe is “in tune”.  The landscapes, the smells, the thoughts – all of them make it very easy, and natural, to be in that place.  I think everyone who had a happy childhood must have a “place of origin” like that.

What I had forgotten, however, is that Washington County is more than just a place of personal origin.  It was the birthplace of Texas as a Republic.  At Washington-on-the-Brazos, in March of 1836, the Texas Declaration of Independence was signed at a Convention held there.  A Constitution was also drafted.  Astonishingly, less than two months later Sam Houston defeated Santa Anna and the Mexican army at the San Jacinto battleground outside Houston, and Texas was a country!

I did not stop at Washington-on-the-Brazos on this trip, but I’ll revisit it once the 254 county adventure is over.

This is the Washington County courthouse in Brenham:

And I got to see my old friend Ben Rice, whom I had not seen in 50 years, while in Brenham:

I did stop off in Burton on the way back to Wimberley, seeing the Brazos Belle where my grandparents celebrated their 50th anniversary, decades ago.

I did stop off and visit my grandfather’s former ranch – those pix will be put up separately.

This was a grand trip, encompassing a huge variety of landscapes, histories, friends, family, and memories.  204 counties now visited, exactly 50 to go.

The end of Trip 8.

Here’s the itinerary for these two days of travel:

One of the reasons for doing this trip, rather than the one up north, was that it gave me a chance to meet my old friend from 40 years ago at The Woodlands, where he was doing a training course of some sort.  We spent Monday together, catching up on stories, and reveling in the way old friendships can be rekindled in an instant, regardless of how much time has passed.

My old friend, Aloysius (Luis) Pereira, from Belgaum, India:

In the afternoon, I bade farewell to Aloysius and headed up to Conroe to meet my dear Aunt Ione, cousin Karen, and Karen’s husband Randy.  Here’s Conroe:

Montgomery County has been officially recognized by the Texas state legislature as being the birthplace of the inimitable “Lone Star” flag which has flown over the state since 1839 – it was then an independent country.

Scenes in Conroe

Little paintings on a streetside bench: 

Had a great dinner in Conroe with my hysterically funny family members, and then overnighted at Cousin Karen’s place up on Lake Conroe, or, Lake Cornrow as I call it.

Next morning, I set out early for the next stop, Coldspring, seat of San Jacinto County.  My Aunt Ione lived there for more than 15 years, so we have some family history there, too.  On the way there, I ran through the little settlement of Punkin, which is what my Aunt Ione called me when I was little.  (She also called me other things, and still does, but Punkin was when I was in the good graces…)

 

Note that there is a cross above the door to the courthouse in Coldspring, and there are identical ones on all four sides.  I’ve been unable to determine definitively whether this is legal, but I don’t find it consistent with one of the characteristics that does make America great, which is separation of church and state.  I don’t see a need for ANY religious iconography on state property that is ostensibly in the service of people of all, or no, religion.

From Coldspring to Livingston, seat of Polk County, through the Sam Houston National Forest.

You could interpret this plate in more than one way (I spent decades with the United Nations Development Programme, UNDP), though the fact that the plate is on a Raptor truck suggests that this agenda is not the same as that of my old alma mater.

Breakfast in Livingston

From Livingston to Woodville, seat of Tyler County.  Gorgeous landscapes along the way, and clouds indicating (accurately, it turned out) what was in store for me the rest of the day.

In Woodville I discovered to my horror that I had mindlessly gone off and left my tripod in Livingston.  It was too far to go back with no assurance that it would even be there, so I came up with Plan B, which was balancing my camera on top of a parking meter post that had been beheaded, and then running through the traffic to the other side of the street, hoping that the camera did not fall off, or that a car would drive into the picture.  It took three tries, but I did finally get my Woodville courthouse picture:

So I set out from Woodville as a man on a mission – GET TRIPOD.   Leaving Woodville on the way to Kountze (pronounced “coonts”), as the humidity is turning to drizzle – EUREKA!  Wal-Mart!  I found there a plastic tripod that was too big for my travel case, but thanks to my years as a Boy Scoutmaster, I had bungee cords with me that enabled a very effective strap-down arrangement.  With newfound confidence, though still kicking my own backside for having lost my pro-grade tripod, I set off into the rain.

Kountze turned out to be the first in a string of problematic courthouses to photograph.  Luckily I had a new tripod to work with.  The highway runs right in front of the razor-wire protected courthouse, and in order to photograph the bike, me and the courthouse, I had to get the bike up on the pavement right at the entrance.  I’m usually reluctant to try that, for fear that it will attract unfavorable attention from law enforcement (see Huntsville, two days later, for proof that this is not an irrational concern).  In this case a law enforcement person happened to come out of the courthouse, and I was able to explain what I intended to do, and got a “no objection”.  Even if he had objected, I would have waited until he left and then done it anyway – I could not leave the fair ville of Kountze without the photo!  Well, here it is – t’ain’t much, but there’s no doubt about where I am…

From Kountze, now off in a westerly direction to Liberty, seat of the county of the same name.  Along the way I spied a trio of miniature horses grazing:

Unlike on the previous trip, where I failed to don my rain gear until I was already soaked, this time I put on the rain gear BEFORE I was soaked.  And then I spent most of the next two days putting it on, and taking it off, and putting it on, and taking it off…  Why?  Think 95 degrees and 100% humidity.  If the rain doesn’t get you, the sweat will.

On the next leg, to Anahuac, seat of Chambers County, the rain DID get me, both en route, and then in Anahuac.

Anahuac is apparently a Nahuatl (Aztec) word meaning “close to water”.  That fits, as it is right on the Gulf of Mexico.  It was never part of the Aztec Empire, it was given the name by Mexico when it controlled the area (prior to Texas independence).  Anahuac was the scene of “disturbances” in 1832 and in 1835 that helped precipitate the war for Texas independence.  More importantly, Anahuac is the “Alligator Capital of Texas”, and holds an annual Gator Fest.  Mark your calendar accordingly.

Anahuac seems to be home to vocal supporters of Trump-Pence and their agenda, in particular the wall:

From Anahuac, I drove a local road parallel to I10 almost all the way to Beaumont, the 4th largest port in the US, and home, or near home, to lots of people, including George Jones (from Vidor), Janis Joplin (Port Arthur), J.P. Richardson (AKA The Big Bopper), sportsman Babe Didrikson Zaharias, and Johnny and Edgar Winter, blues musicians.  Jason’s Deli is HQ’d here.

Beaumont is also home to an important branch of my family, where my 2nd cousins still live.  When I was a very small boy we used to come visit them from Houston, and marvel at the gracious lifestyle they enjoyed.  I had arranged to meet my two cousins upon arrival at the Jefferson County courthouse, which I did and could happily include them in my Beaumont courthouse picture (my cousins are the ladies, Kathy (L) and Ninette (R):

Ninette’s son Charles took Kathy and me up to the 9th floor of his building overlooking Beaumont.  These are the views:

This gorgeous home was where my relatives, the Walkers, lived.  In the day it was white, and in my recollections it was as if it were Manderley, the fictional home of Rebecca de Winter of the du Maurier book and Hitchcock movie.  It is now owned by an oil baron, and though it has changed color, it is still glorious.

My cousin Kathy invited me to overnight with her and husband Pat, and we talked until late about our recollections and our respective genealogical findings.  It was a great ending to a great day…  Thanks, Kathy and Pat.

Off bright and early the next morning, bound due East for Orange, seat of Orange County.  OK, early, if not bright…

Here’s the day’s itinerary:

Near the courthouse is the beautiful home and garden of the Lutcher Stark family.  The house, built in 1894, is a Queen Anne style, over 14,000 sq. ft.  According to the information on the grounds, the family adored the garden and spent more on lawn and garden supplies than they did on domestic help and utilities.  When the Lutcher Starks died in 1936, the house was closed down for good, but then restored and used as a museum.  I found out upon my return home that my old friend George Parks is a relative of the Starks (and is still awaiting, in vain, he believes, his share of the inheritance!)

The rain started in Orange, and escalated in intensity during the long ride north on 87 toward Jasper, where my Uncle Dalton had been a young man before leaving home and eventually joining the Army.  This is deep woods territory, and the elegance of the Stark mansion soon gave way to the brooding sensibility of this land.  As epitomized by this flag-draped roadside home and produce stall.  They also proudly offer “Confedrate (sic) items” – I think the spelling follows the pronunciation in this neck of the woods.

Not much further up the road I encountered this enticing offer to head down a Dead End road to the Texas Hogwallow.  With visions of “Deliverance” dancing in my head, I chose to point the BMW north and skedaddle…

Skedaddle right into the rain, that is.

With the refrain of Dylan’s “Shelter from the Storm” in my head, I courted divine wrath by pulling the BMW up on the dry porch of a local religious establishment and donned the rain gear for the first, but not last, time today.

A brief respite from the rain gave me a chance to run out and capture one of the defining images of this trip – 18-wheeler laden with logs blasting down the highway in a nasty cloud of crosswind and spray.  A motorcyclist’s nightmare…

However, shortly thereafter came the motorcyclist’s dream, a big, swooping downhill curve through the forest toward Jasper.

From Jasper, due east to the little town of Newton, seat of Newton County.

 

From Newton, north to Hemphill, seat of Sabine County, named for the Sabine River that provides the border with Louisiana.  The road leads right through the magnificent Sabine National Forest.

And finally!  A Zen moment in the forest.  For a brief instant, I know where I am!  As is said by many an inveterate traveler:  “No matter where you go, there you are”…meaning that there’s no escape from yourself.   Or the corollary, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there…”

A fragment of the massive Toledo Bend lake:

And then on to Hemphill…

 

From Hemphill, northwest on a magical road to a magical town that I had never even heard of, San Augustine, seat of San Augustine county.

So it turns out that this route retraces the old El Camino Real, running from Louisiana through San Antonio all the way to Laredo.  It was first established under Mexican rule in the 1680’s, when the governor of Coahuila was trying to find and destroy a fort that had been established by Rene-Robert Cavalier, Sieur de la Salle – about whom we’ll hear more when we get to Navasota.  However bloody the original road, the present one is a delight.

 

From the down-home to the distinctly elegant in San Augustine…

You could say that the courthouse is plain, but it is very tasteful, the green window frames harmonizing nicely with the well-manicured green grass around the courthouse.

Elsewhere around town is this beautiful little Episcopal church, right next to the equally charming Crockett Hall, which may in fact be part of the church grounds, I could not ascertain this.

From San Augustine due north to Center, seat of Shelby county.

The courthouse in this modest little town turns out to be a jewel!

The Rio in Center, Texas

From Center, I begin to leave the deep forest for the wooded terrain of Nacogdoches, seat of Nacogdoches County, both named for the Nacogdoche tribe of Caddo Indians who inhabited this area for up to ten thousand years before the arrival of the Europeans. The road remains stunning:

Nacogdoches is a charming little university town (Stephen F. Austin U), and seems to be enjoying the benefits thereof.

Now you may think that my photographing of the courthouses is as simple as pulling up in front of the courthouse, setting up the tripod, and firing away.  Sometimes it IS that simple, but there is usually a challenge of some sort, whether lighting, law enforcement, positioning of extraneous vehicles, foot traffic, etc.  Nacogdoches posed the greatest challenge yet, and I fully expected my solution to result in a fine or handcuffs.

The Nacogdoches courthouse is right on a very busy corner.  It is behind walls, and looks more like a hacienda than a courthouse.  I could find no way of getting anything that even superficially looked courthouse-like from the outside.  The only solution I saw was to bring the motorcycle INSIDE the courtyard and photograph from there.  I tried to find an authority figure from whom I could get an OK for that idea, but not finding one, I readied all the camera equipment inside the courtyard, and then, breathing deeply, pushed the bike into the courtyard and into a suitable position.  I made the shot, thrust the tripod aside, and manhandled the heavily laden bike back out onto the sidewalk – still a violation of some sort, but a lesser one, I hoped.  (If I had been caught out there, I was going to say that the engine had stopped running and I had to get it out of the way of traffic…)  Anyway, what the following photo lacks in visual intensity does at least reflect a “get ‘er done” resilience.   A deviant mind is a terrible thing to waste…  I offer you Nacogdoches…

Believe me, it was with a huge sigh of relief that I fled due south toward Lufkin, seat of Angelina County.  The county is named for a Native American woman who helped Spanish missionaries – they called her “Angelina”, though it’s highly unlikely that that was what her tribespeople called her.  Anyway, it’s a nice thought, and better than yet another Confederate slaver.  And in fact Angelina County was the ONLY county in East Texas to reject the secession vote in 1861.  Here’s how Angelina county was described by John N. Lomax (my mother was born a Lomax):

“Culturally, the county was less moonlight-and-magnolias Dixie than a little pocket of Appalachia, where pioneers, often from similarly hardscrabble areas of Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, wanted nothing more than to carve homesteads out of the Piney Woods and river thickets, farm a little, maybe raise a scraggly herd of tough cattle to drive to market in New Orleans.”  And, he added, “[t]hey also wanted to brew up a little whiskey and subsist on the bass, catfish and perch they hauled from the Neches and Angelina rivers and whatever they could trap and shoot on dry land.”  Doesn’t seem like it has changed much…

Katherine Ann Porter and her sister were married together (to two guys, not each other – those were different times…) in Lufkin, and both Brookshire Brothers (of grocery store and pharmacy fame) and Atkinson Candies, inventor of the mighty Chick-O-Stick novelty candy, are HQ’d in Lufkin.

They also have The Pines, where you can still see the original Magnificent Seven.  I’d surely go if I were there..

Because of the constant rain, I shot my first photo of the courthouse while I was still wearing my rain gear.  Luckily I noticed that it made me bear a resemblance to the Michelin Man, so there is a corrective photo that shows the real me.  It’s not much of an improvement, I concede…

From Lufkin, to paraphrase “A Day in the Life”, “somebody spoke and I fell into a dream”.  That dream was the nearly surreal drive between Lufkin and Groveton, seat of Trinity County.  The road runs right through the middle of the Davy Crockett National Forest, which is itself a high order spectacle.  Then, as you near Groveton (I had also never even heard of the place), I spied a sign or two leading to a place called “Nigton”.  As a place name, it seemed to bear an uncanny resemblance to another place name that I knew in my youth, but is now something that cannot be uttered by people of my hue.  I could not tell how far off the trail it would take me (the afternoon was getting on), so I plowed on to Groveton, but wondering about Nigton.

Subsequent research, however, showed that Nigton is a “ghost town”, notwithstanding still having a population, founded in 1873 by ex-slaves, and named by one of the ex-slaves.  It’s an interesting story, you can look it up at this site:  “Uncovered Texas | Ghost Towns”.  (Sorry, I did not succeed in embedding the link…)

Actually Groveton is pretty close to being a ghost town itself, though it has a fine, large courthouse:

Here’s downtown Groveton.  I never saw moving car nor living human the whole time I was there.

From Groveton, I headed northwest to a place that, finally, I had heard of before:  Crockett, seat of Houston County.  As a small boy I had been infatuated with Davy Crockett (“King of the Wild Frontier”), and had owned and frequently worn a real coonskin cap, just like Davy’s (or Fess Parker’s, of San Angelo, who played Davy on TV).  Crockett, Texas is so named after the same Crockett, who died in the siege of the Alamo.   The famous Kenny Rogers is from Crockett.

Houston County is itself named after Sam Houston, and was the very first county established by the Republic of Texas.  More on Sam Houston when we get to Huntsville…

I had originally thought to spend the night in Crockett, but, not spying much in the way of food or lodging, decided to make my way west to Centerville, seat of Leon County (and conveniently located on I45).

The roads had finally dried out, and I removed my rain gear for the last time today, and had a serene run in to Centerville.

Centerville’s not much more than a wide place in the road, but by chance I discovered while looking at my itinerary that this was the 200th courthouse I have visited on this adventure.  Fifty-four to go!

I was so happy to be driving in the dry that I decided to continue on to Madisonville, from where we resume the travelogue tomorrow morning.

 

I had been in Houston in April, when I shot the Harris County courthouse with the Vespa as the steed of choice.  I had been regretting that the way I had done it resulted in what I call “ant pictures”, in which the subject is so small you can’t even make out what it is.  I had some ideas on how to do it better, and I also wanted to shoot some pix of downtown Houston that I did not have time for before, so I set out bright and early on Sunday morning to revisit my hometown.

This time I successfully managed to find Memorial Drive into Houston – it looks EXACTLY the same as it did 50 years ago – in fact the road surface even looks to be original.  It is uncanny…

Upon arriving downtown…

Alternatives to ant pix…justice now done for the Vespa, this being the only courthouse shoot it gets to attend…

These two inscriptions were in the sidewalk across the street from the courthouse:

After reshooting the courthouse area, I set off to prowl around town.  Here’s what I found:

I had some time to kill before a lunch date with old friend John (Jay) Nelson, so I decided to pay a visit to my alma mater, the University of Houston, which gave me my BA, but did little to inspire alumnus enthusiasm.  It was MUCH nicer than I had recollected…

Well, heading back into town, I stumbled into a veritable cornucopia of murals and street art, beginning with the law offices of Tim Hootman.

Around Pease Street, murals, murals, murals!

So I had lunch with John Nelson in town, negotiated the hellish ride (on the Vespa) out Westheimer to Spring Branch, then met my old friend James Horwitz (candidate for Judge in the upcoming election – VOTE HORWITZ!, you’ll be proud you did).  Tomorrow back on the open road…

This was a longer-than-usual trip because I spent a couple of days in the Houston area catching up with some old friends and family.  So this first day was, by my standards, a leisurely affair.

Itinerary for Day 1 here:

I set out on Saturday morning from Wimberley, headed for La Grange, seat of Fayette County.  This is fine, rolling country, conducive to relaxed, comfortable cruising south of triple-digit territory.

The bike for this trip was, again, the BMW – it is so comfortable, and convenient, I have a hard time saying “no” to it…

In addition to this being cattle country, it is also host to cotton farming, now ripe and ready for harvest.

The Fayette county courthouse was another of those unexpected surprises.  I used to come to La Grange quite a bit as a boy, but I had no recollection of ever being at the town square.  Better late than never…

From La Grange, I went next to Fayetteville

Next stop, Bellville, seat of Austin county.

I was gratified to note that Bellville’s Trump Cafe seems to be defunct, consistent with the maxim “Everything Trump Touches Dies”, ETTD.

And in case you were wondering why it’s called Bellville…

And then on to Hempstead, through which I learned highway driving in the early sixties on old 290, which still looks the same, though the dirt-floor BBQ joint and watermelon stands are long gone…

Waller county is (in)famous for being the site, three years back, of the arrest and then death in custody of the African-American woman Ms. Sandra Bland.  If you have not seen the video of the arrest, you should Google it.  She wound up dead in a cell after being arrested for a trivial traffic stop.  I guess she got “uppity”…  This kind of thing should not be happening.

Hempstead was the last courthouse stop of the day – then on to Houston, where I met up with my childhood friend, Dale Woodard.  Dale and I disagree on practically everything, but we are able to agree that we are still friends, 60 years later.  That’s worth something!

Tomorrow, playtime in Houston.

Knowing that I had a 400-mile day ahead of me, I actually set the alarm for this fourth and final day of this trip.  Here’s the itinerary:

First stop, Emory, seat of Rains county.  Both reflecting glory on Mr. Emory Rains, an early “Texas patriot”.  More creative name-giving at work.

I met the county judge coming out of the courthouse, and he, having coming to Emory later in life, was enthusiastic about it as a place to live.  It kind of seemed that way – how could it be otherwise with this establishment of fine dining right on the courthouse square…

Too bad for me, the Bigmouth wasn’t yet open, so I had to push on westward toward Greenville, seat of Hunt county.  This is still quintessential horse country, as illustrated by these happy fellows…

Greenville is actually a little town, complete with overpass over the railroad lines.  The courthouse is a pretty thing, located smack in the center of town.  It is the 7th one since the county was established (the first being a log cabin), and was opened in 1929 (just in time for the Depression).

An attractive wine bar across from the courthouse, though no place I could spot that sold guns and ammo.  I would think a town of this size could provide sufficient custom for a gun and tactical enterprise of some sort.  (Note: potential business opportunity…)

Wasting no time, now headed (with trepidation) into the urbanized fringes of Dallas and Fort Worth.  First stop, McKinney, seat of Collin county.  This place was the biggest positive shock of this trip.  The center of town is beautiful, tasteful, and prosperous looking, with gorgeous homes, shaded boulevards, and fine buildings.   Also sidewalk cafes, at one of which I broke my fast.

This building is now the Performing Arts Center, though I think it may have at one time been the courthouse.

Now the courthouse is out in the edge of town in what looks like a small city (or mausoleum).

Continuing the Westward Ho! trip, next stop Denton, seat of…Denton county.  Now this was another surprise.  Denton is a college town, hosting the University of North Texas and Texas Woman’s University.  The University of North Texas is noted for its music school, and from that school came the band Midlake, who produced the intriguing song called “Roscoe”.  More on that later.

Denton felt to me the same way that Austin did in the 70’s.  In the same way as being in Yangon (Burma) in the 2000’s felt just like being in Orissa (India) in the early 70’s.  If I were looking for a new place to settle into for the end-of-life glide path (or crash-and-burn), I’d give this little place consideration.

The courthouse is a stunner, and you can’t help but wonder whether the extensive and beautiful stone-work inspired the afore-mentioned Midlake to begin their song with

“Stonecutters made them from stones
Chosen specially for you and I”

OK, it’s not grammatically correct, but it’s a fairly evocative way of beginning a song, and it delights the mind by taking quite a few additional twists and turns before it reaches the end.  We’ll return to this song one more time before the end of this leg…

I had no time to tarry in Denton, mindful of the fact that I still had hundreds of miles yet to go in order to get back to Wimberley before dark.  I did find time, however, to come to another screeching halt at the Scalco Bucking Bulls operation.  From here came the thematic image for this trip (perhaps for my whole life):

I put that second picture on FaceBook, and was amazed at how many people found appeal in the idea of me getting kicked in the head by a bucking bull.  There was widespread disappointment when the realization set in that it was a sculpture, not a real bull….

Here, however, is what it looks like in real life, taken a few weeks ago at the Marble Falls rodeo:

There were also real bulls being raised for the rodeo, and they reminded me of my childhood when I lived in terror of the 1-ton Santa Gertrudis bulls my grandfather had on his ranch.

These are all young bulls, not yet in their prime for rodeo work, but impressive enough to remind you of what they are capable.

Well, not a mile down the road I came across a herd of the fabled Texas longhorns (cattle, not university students).

And on to the little town to which the old geezer had alerted me two days earlier, Decatur, seat of Wise County.  And he was well-advised to do so:

This courthouse for the obscure (to me) little town of Decatur eclipses those of many more sizeable metropoli.  As I was photographing it, a guy drives by in a low-rider car and yells “Photograph it good, I’ve had a lot of problems come out of that place!”  I laughed, and yelled back “I might too, before the day’s over…”.

Luckily that did not happen (since I had gotten the 128 mph stuff out of my system several days earlier), so I pointed the Beemer south and headed home.  My original plan was that Decatur was the last photo stop on this trip, but since I had some time to spare, and could/would pass through some additional county seats, I added on Weatherford, Granbury, Glen Rose, and Hamilton.

Weatherford first.  I’m driving into town and at the end of this long boulevard-like road I see something looming on the horizon looking like Jagganath temple in Puri, or a Shiva temple in south India.  That turns out to be the Weatherford courthouse.  It was under renovation and there was no way to get all that close to it (it is ringed by a traffic circle), so I parked the bike under the construction scaffolding, placed the camera on a traffic median, and dodged traffic to get back to the bike before a) a car came, or b) the shutter went off.  This is the result:

Weatherford deserved more attention than I had time to give it, but I was now in homing pigeon mode, and continued southward to Granbury, seat of Hood county.  Another very pleasant little town – I like the open-ness and dry air of these towns to the west of DFW.  It looks like the architect of the Granbury courthouse may have been the same as the one in Weatherford, or at least copied that style.

Perhaps one could be forgiven for wondering about that thing on top of the courthouse that looks like it came from a retired battleship.  It looks like an afterthought, and something that could (or should) fall off in a strong wind.

Between Granbury and Glen Rose, seat of Somervell county, is a historical marker for a Squaw Creek Indian fight.  Form your own conclusions from the story.  Also note that the sign has been singled out for more vehicular marksmanship attention.  😀

Glen Rose looks like it could have been located in the Shire, only lacking hobbits.  The courthouse is like a stone dollhouse, perfect in proportion.

In addition, it calls itself the Dinosaur Capital of Texas, I guess vying with Seymour for that honor.  What seems to give Glen Rose the edge, though, is that it hosts the Creation Evidence Museum, which, in the town’s own words, allows you to “explore the scientific evidence that the earth and universe were created by special design.”  I did not get to go there, otherwise perhaps I’d have found the evidence for the co-existence of humans and dinosaurs that I could not find in Seymour.  In addition, this museum has a 25′ long replica, 1/20th scale, of Noah’s Ark.  I had not realized that his blueprints were still around, but I hope to check that out on the next run up north.

Glen Rose is also situated on the banks of the Brazos River before it turns into the big, red, muddy thing we see down on the Gulf Coast.  There were lots of little old-fashioned looking cabins and campgrounds along the river road leading to town.  A fascinating little place, and already on the Revisit List.

More incredible vistas on the road through cattle country toward the last stop, Hamilton, seat of…how could it be otherwise…Hamilton county.

These cows, to their credit, do have sense enough to get out of the sun, though that tree “don’t give a lot of shade”.  It’s not as if, though, they have too many alternatives.

And finally, a great way to end a great trip:  this beautiful little Hamilton courthouse.  How could it get any prettier?

So, sun baking down, I saddled back up for the long haul down 281 for the turn-off that leads me to Wimberley.  A final anecdote…

You may remember that I mentioned the Midlake song “Roscoe” earlier.  It contains the following lines:

Whenever I was a child I wondered what if my name had changed into something more productive like Roscoe
Been born in 1891
Waiting with my Aunt Rosaline

Driving thousands of miles gives you a lot of time for thought.  As I see these places I wonder, like “Roscoe”, what my life would have been like if I had been born in one of these places, each one offering a unique and random variation for an opportunity to live this one lifetime.  What would I have believed?  What kind of man would I have turned out to be?

And, for a nomad like myself:  What would it be like to go live there now?  Who would I have for friends?  What would be my passions?

It is wonder, not wistfulness – I cannot imagine living a life that I’d prefer to the one that I’ve been lucky to have, but there are infinite other ways it could have been.  It’s fun to think about them while riding a beautiful motorcycle down that seam of the always present from the always past to the always future.

Next trip:  Dallas, Fort Worth, and more of the Piney Woods of East Texas.

Thanks for riding along…

End of the Red River Trip

 

 

 

My wet socks from Day 1 of this trip had, despite my best efforts, not yet dried out.  In fact they had taken on a bit of an…uh…aroma.  I resolved that they and I would part company, but being the kind of person who doesn’t want the motel staff to wonder what kind of person would be wearing, and disposing of, in the motel garbage can, something that smelled like it was dead…well, I opted for Plan B.

Itinerary for Day 3:

I had already decided that you can’t do a trip called “Red River Trip” without actually seeing the Red River (I’m fussy about that kind of detail), so the first stop of the day was going to be to the Red River, which would also become the final resting place of those once beloved, but now reviled, Buffalo Brand socks.

I lit out from the Lindsay Inn, into the blinding sun, and then dashed north for 5 miles to the Red River.  I knew I could not stop on the Interstate bridge, so I took the last exit before Oklahoma.  Eureka!  The feeder road did a U-turn under I-35 right AT the river, allowing me to a) photograph the river, and b) dispose of the dreaded and now toxic socks in the bushes, where no nosy motel staff will find them.  Or, if they do, they won’t associate them with me. After the next flood, though, I’d steer clear of the Red River for a while, those socks could turn up anywhere.

Speaking of the Red River…le voila!

And now, welcoming the new arrivals from the North Country Fair, a reminder to “Drive Friendly – the Texas Way”.  Any motorist who saw the Sheriff’s military-grade Humvee awaiting in Montague would probably respond positively to that exhortation.

The stretch from Gainesville to Sherman and beyond was as close to perfect horse country as you will get outside of Kentucky.  It is also perfect for large trucks, so every time I’d see an image to die for, there would be a truck and trailer beside me, behind me, in front of me…so that part of the trip is sadly not documented.  But, other than the traffic, it is a great road to ride.

There are a fair number of Shermans in my family – grandfather and uncle and cousin, at least – but I had never thought of it as an especially good name for a TOWN.  (This, mind you, being the opinion of someone named “Norman”, no great shakes itself…)  Lo and behold, the little town/city of Sherman is a little gem, with a charming courthouse and little sidewalk cafes (where I ate breakfast).

And, for some happy but unknown reason, there were more pretty women sashaying around Sherman than I can recall having seen in any Texas town.  (Make a note of that if you are shopping for a new place to live.)

From Sherman, along the southern bank of the Red River to Bonham, seat of Fannin country.  It is named for James Bonham, who died in the battle of the Alamo in San Antonio.  The courthouse is in a state of near ruins, though it is seemingly being renovated.

While it doesn’t have a courthouse in the traditional sense, it does have the most odious of the monuments to the Confederacy I have yet seen.  I feature it, and details of it, below:

I have previously expressed consternation at the extensive celebration of the Confederacy and its heroes on the grounds of state facilities.  I have noted that the Confederate flag still flies over at least one courthouse (Goldthwaite).  Twenty-six of the 254 counties of Texas are named for people associated with the Confederacy.  I have an ancestor who fought in the Confederate Army and drew a pension from the post-war government for it.

This monument merits not consternation, but contempt.  It is of recent provenance, and it was erected by people who knew what they were celebrating as a “just cause”, “unrivalled for…bravery, gallantry, daring and dash”, whose soldiers were fighting for “principle”.

Actually the latter part is correct.  The principle they were fighting for is the principle of human slavery based on race.  I’m tired of and bored with the stupid arguments that it was about states rights, or other mumbo jumbo.  I quote below from the document called the “Declaration of Causes” passed by the Texas state convention on 2 February 1861:

“We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.

…that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations…”

Mississippi declared, in its equivalent document, the following:

“Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery– the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun.”

If that doesn’t make your blood run cold, I don’t know what would.  Those aren’t opinion pieces, they are from the documents penned by the architects and managers of the Confederacy.

These documents state in the clearest possible terms the motivations behind the establishment of the Confederacy.  Similar contemporary documents were promulgated by Georgia,  South Carolina, and Virginia.

So yes, though I do have some personal roots on the Confederate side of that conflict, I’m not going to pretend that it was noble, gallant, dashing, daring, just, or right.  I understand how it came about, but it was wrong, and it was on the wrong side of a human history with hope.

So don’t wave that Confederate flag in my direction and expect a polite response.  It is time – actually I thought it had arrived 50 years ago – for white people, white Southerners in particular, to move beyond the stale, and intellectually and morally dishonest, arguments supportive of the Confederate secession.  Move on.  Please.  It’s overdue.

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.  Moving on…

…to the funny little town of Cooper, seat of tiny Delta county.  This little display on the roadside!

And the almost “Deep South” feel to the Delta county courthouse…

And then, finally, to PARIS!!  Paris, Texas, that is…seat of Lamar County and site of the famous 1984 Wim Wenders movie of the same name, sound track by the inimitable Ry Cooder.  (Spoiler alert – the movie has virtually nothing to do with Paris, Texas, other than as an idée fixe.)

A very substantial courthouse.

The First United Methodist Church.  I initially thought it must be a branch of the US Mint, or an LDS fortification, but lo and behold it’s the Methodist church.  They don’t seem to be having hard times…

Then, further eastward to Clarksville (Take the Last Train to… – OK, so that was Clarksville, TN), seat of Red River county.  More of those cross-like things on top of the courthouse…

On the road from Clarksville to New Boston, seat of Bowie county, I spied the first stand of pine trees, reminding me that I was now leaving behind West Texas and entering East Texas, this being the northern reach of the Piney Woods that extend all down the eastern side of Texas to the Gulf of Mexico.

The humidity began to change along with the vegetation.  I grew up on the hot, steamy, piney Gulf Coast, and this climatic transition reminded me that I’m not a forest person, or a fan of the muggy climate.  I like to see a horizon, and I like to have the sweat evaporate under wind and dry heat.   However, I’d better buck up, the next few trips are going to be exclusively in the heat and humidity.

In a refreshing respite from the glory of the Confederacy, Bowie county is named for Jim Bowie – he of the knife and the Alamo.  The county seat is New Boston, which I’d never even heard of – but it has a new and obviously expensive court house, with aforesaid Jim Bowie presiding over it.

Can’t believe I left that helmet out there to clutter up the photo…

Having reached the eastern-most part of Texas, nudging up against Arkansas and Louisiana, I head south for Linden, seat of Cass county.  Here you can clearly see the difference in landscape.

Maud, TX, en route to Linden…

Other than rain, it’s been a while since I’ve seen WATER!!  I like this picture because the road sign is peppered with shotgun shot and a few large-bore bullet holes.  Clearly one of the favored local sports is riding around with guns shooting road signs.  I get it.  In my neighborhood in Wimberley they play mail box baseball, which involves riding around with baseball bats bashing mailboxes off their post.  Mine has on at least one occasion provided somebody with at least a double, maybe a triple.

So T-Bone Walker is from the hamlet of Linden!  If you don’t know T-Bone’s music, it’s worth looking it up.  He was cited by none other than B. B. King as being the man who made B. B. want to play the blues.  You probably have heard of his most famous song, “They Call it Stormy Monday (But Tuesday’s Just as Bad)”, AKA Stormy Monday.

More brilliant murals!  Where do these towns find these artists?

And on to the curious little town of Daingerfield, seat of Morris county.

And then to Pittsburg (yes, spelled without an “h”), seat of Camp county.

And then to Mount Pleasant, seat of Titus county – jumping for joy!

Glorious vistas on the road from Mount Pleasant to Mount Vernon, seat of Franklin county and namesake of my neighboring town when I lived in New Rochelle, NY.

Mount Vernon is a very special little town.  It is immaculately and creatively maintained, and despite its tiny size it had what seemed to be flourishing life around its beautiful central square with gazebo.

And finally, for the last stop of the day:  Sulphur Springs, seat of Hopkins county.  Never having been to this place before, I imagined it as a grungy little dump located around some huckstered curative “spring”, but nothing could be further from the truth.  It is an elegant little town with the greenery of east Texas, but the better (for me) climate of the west.  And the courthouse is like something out of Alice in Wonderland.

The downtown has little sidewalk cafes, where I took my very fine evening meal in the warm glow of the setting sun.  Two big draft beer reward!  Magical end to a magical day.

 

End of Day 3 of Red River Trip

 

Apparently the penance I had done on Day 1 was rewarded with a glorious, cool, dry Texas morning – the kind you get out west after a rare day of rain.

Day agenda here:

First destination of the day, Haskell, seat of Haskell County.  It seems like every one of the little towns on the Texas prairie are trying to gussy themselves up and provide some point of interest that would suffice to attract tourists (tourist dollars, actually).  Anything will do:  the Pecan Capital of the World (San Saba); Wild Hog Capital of the World (Crowell); Fishing Capital of Texas (Port Aransas).  To its credit, as far as I could tell the town of Haskell had made no effort to do any promotion beyond what it says on its web site (!):

 Haskell is a slice of small-town living at its best. Here you’ll find homes nestled next to cotton fields, family owned retail shops where the owner knows you by name, as well as a community spirit rooted in family values, good-will and the future.

You have to appreciate that low-key honesty, though there’s not a whole lot in the photographic department.  I may have to go back and try again…

And besides, with roads like this, between Haskell and Throckmorton, who needs any other attraction?  And probably the irresistible tendency to “see what this thing will do” on roads like this must provide revenue well in excess of what tourism could produce.  Luckily I was not recruited into that revenue-generating process, though I did find out that the BMW would do 128 before I spotted an oncoming car on the distant horizon and dialed it down.  There was more left…

While blasting along toward the prosaically named Throckmorton, I spied a dark mass in the distance.  I initially took it for a rare tree of some kind, but then formed the opinion, like looking at clouds, that the tree had somehow taken the shape of a giant cow.  Giant cow indeed!  It actually WAS a giant cow (bull, actually, as more careful study of the photos made clear) made of metal, standing alone out on the treeless prairie.  I can understand that living out here gives rise to unusual urges…

But the “road goes on forever, the party never ends…”  – thanks to Robert Earl Keen, Jr.

It may not end in, but leads to Throckmorton, seat of Throckmorton county.  I guess they liked that name so much they decided to use it twice, rather than think up a different name for the town.  It’s a pretty little courthouse in an area reminiscent of the Panhandle (see Trip 3) – and no, that’s not a cross on top of it, it’s a kind of compass/weathervane that LOOKS like a cross.  That’s probably not accidental, though technically it’s not a challenge to the separation of church and state…

What IS, a challenge, however, is the tablet-looking (another odd coincidence) monument in front of the courthouse.  It contains a verbatim transcription of the ten commandments (or Ten Commandments, if you prefer).  I had thought that was no longer legal, but I’m not sure.  Legal or not, it doesn’t seem to fit all that well with the principles on which the US is supposed to be based…

Another of those metal longhorns.  I’m seeing a theme emerging here in Throckmorton.

Moving on along, a new creature theme emerges in the town of Seymour, seat of Baylor county (no doubt named after the Baylor of Baylor University…).   Apparently the Seymour area was a hot-bed of dinosaur activity during the Permian Era around 300 million years ago – I’m not sure if the town of Seymour had been established then, though there’s some that opine that people and dinosaurs co-existed.  If that’s true, then maybe Seymour WAS here then.  In any case, one of the main attractions of the museum (regrettably closed this morning) is an “…adult dimetrodon femur with a chewed-off knee joint”!  (Say that out loud in the accent of your choice…).  Hot damn!!  As if an adult dimetrodon femur ITSELF weren’t sufficient cause for interest!  It seems that the dimetrodons were unfortunate in having to share Seymour county with their unruly neighbors, the T. rex.  I would hope that things are more civil these days, but it’s Texas, you never know…

You don’t find many signs like this one out in front of the electric company any more…

The county courthouse is a little unassuming, but with T. rex, dimetrodon, and pterodactyls in the ‘hood, it’s probably best to keep a low profile.

It is always with apprehension that I leave the country roads for urbanized areas, but next stop on the agenda is Wichita Falls, seat of Wichita county.  The whole way there I was thinking of the ’80s record by Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays, “As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls”. (Hey, don’t ask me, I didn’t make that up…)  The dreamy music, however, fit perfectly…

Wichita Falls is a beautiful and well-maintained little Plains town.  I was thinking that I’d like to get married and settle down there, until I recalled that that chapter of my life is now in the rear-view mirror.  Oh well, it’s still fun to poke around.

This is the town hall and city cultural center – really quite spectacular.

In comparison with city hall, the county courthouse seems to have been short-changed a little.  It looks like they just converted an elementary school from the Fifties to county work…

Skedaddling out of the big city as fast as possible, I headed southward for Archer City, seat of Archer county.  Jesse and Frank James, with the rest of their gang, used to come stay (e.g., hide out) with a local family when things were hot up in Missouri.

The Archer City Visitor Center.  No sign of the James boys…but…a stunningly realistic mural that includes, I am told, a ’54 Chevy.  It’s so realistic you can barely tell, in the lower left-hand corner, the difference between painted vegetation and real vegetation.

Looks like it’s all happening at the Spur Hotel in Archer City.

Home sweet home in Archer City.

Between Archer City and the little paradise of Graham, I come to a screeching halt in front of a seemingly endless elephant’s graveyard of automotive Americana.  I parked the bike and spent nearly an hour strolling along the high fence that protects this amazing place.  There are too many good images to include in this travelogue – I have posted those pix separately on Google Photos – but here’s a sampler:

So I finally could drag myself away from this holy place and head on in to the little town of Graham, seat of Young county – kind of a dull name, but the most beautiful little town you never heard of.

And, I now note but overlooked at the time, a pine tree in front of the courthouse.  More on that in tomorrow’s travelogue…

Courthouse detail.

A diorama in metal of cowboys on the Goodnight-Loving trail, which actually originated right here in Young county.  The first drive took place in 1866, and the trail eventually went all the way to Wyoming.   In the drive of 1867, the herd and herders were attacked by Comanches, and Loving died from his wounds rather than suffer an amputation.

Downtown Graham.

White on white in Graham.

More murals

Moving now eastward from Graham to Jacksboro, seat of Jack county.  Along the way we see the odd sight of an Israeli flag flying along with the flags of the US and Texas.  If you followed the discussion of this picture on FaceBook, you’ll now know that this way of flying the flag of another country alongside that of Old Glory stirs up quite a bit of discussion.  I have to think that the person doing this fully intended it to do so…

Starting to dry out in Jack County (literally, I mean.  I didn’t swear off the akkahol.)

A historical marker in Jacksboro says that a “corn club” was established here in Jack county in 1907, and that this was the forerunner of the international 4H agricultural club for rural kids.  I never heard of a “corn club” before, but I’m willing to concede that it may well have been more entertaining than the alternatives out here (which were probably zero).

From Jacksboro due north to Henrietta, seat of Clay county and the beginning of the west to east run along the Red River.  Horse country from start to end at the Arkansas border.

Right opposite the courthouse was a high-end gun shop, now defunct.  (You’d be surprised at how many Texas towns have a gun shop across from the county courthouse – I wonder if that means anything?)  I was taking photos of it, when a garrulous fellow who owned the truck started up a conversation with me.  It turns out that he is a Comanche who conducts firearms and tactical training, and in addition is a weapons dealer.  (I have his contact information if you need it.)  We talked guns and politics and history for half an hour.  The sordid tale of how the Native American tribes were treated is something that is always glossed over in the “history lessons” associated with the official monuments.  In Texas, at least, the focus is always on the white heroes of the “Indian wars”, or the Mexican “banditti” (a word I first encountered in the Texas declaration of secession from the Union in 1861), or the dashing and gallant heroes of the Confederacy who fought in a “just cause”.  The grimy details of actual history paint a different story than the stories that are widely purveyed as “history”.  I am only conscious of knowing, slightly, one other Comanche, so this was a thought-provoking exchange for both of us.  This is the kind of thing that happens on the road…

And here’s another.  I’m not sure if it was also in Henrietta, but I was parked by one of the courthouses taking pictures when a fully-outfitted Yamaha Tenere 1200 whipped a quick U-turn and came back to stop near me.  Now I’m pretty thoroughly equipped, but this thing had extra fuel cans, industrial-strength bags and top case, and was ready to go anywhere on earth.  The guy was from Dallas, headed for Amarillo.  Like me, traveling alone.  Somewhere in the conversation, I mentioned that I had had another BMW in Thailand.  Well, it turns out that he too has a retirement situation in Thailand, with a sweetheart from the same area as mine (Isaan), and his residence is about a hundred clicks from my ground zero.  It was as if I had met my own clone!  What a day!  Yeah, we exchanged Thai phone numbers and I’ll probably see him next trip back.

Continuing eastward, through Nocona (of cowboy boot fame) to Montague, a sleepy little town.  While I was taking photos, a man came up and I asked him how to pronounce the name of his town.  How would YOU pronounce it, he retorted.  Well, I said, there’s a street by this name in New York City that they call Mon Ta Gyuw.  I, being from Texas, would probably call it Mon Taig.  He laughed, and said that, “yeah, round-a-bouts here we call it Mon Taig”.  I thanked him for giving me tools to avoid embarrassing myself in public, and he told me to be sure to catch the town of Decatur, which was two days later on my agenda.

The Chisholm Trail also passed through Montague.

Montague LOOKED like a sleepy little town, but I guess there’s no end to the mischief that people get up to.  In any case, the Sheriff is ready for it.

Heading out of town, I was conscious of a vivid transition from the dry and wide open plains to greenery and grass…and humidity.

Last stop for this day was in Gainesville, a bustling little town right on Interstate 35, which is probably why it is bustling.

I ended up In Lindsay, TX, at the Lindsay Inn.  I went there in honor of my daughter-in-law, Lindsay, who appreciated the fact that it was spelled correctly.

Another wonderful day on the road in Texas…  Tomorrow morning, eastward bound (straight into the glaring sun…).

End of Day 2, Red River Trip