Lonesome star shine on the big country

Two more shots from Highway 199.

I had wanted to put the Roxy Music song Prairie Rose into one of the Texas posts, but unfortunately every version of the song on YouTube uses the extremely not-safe-for-work album cover art, so the quote from the lyrics above is all you're getting.

(If you never owned the album and don't know what I'm talking about, Google "roxy music country life.")

Urban poetry

Not so urban a sight anymore, perhaps -- big cities have mostly buried all the lines underground -- but I like how the crisscross of these wires in Graham are almost abstract against that gloomy sky.

I did finally get the missing duffel bag, by the way.

Texas

Back in New York.

I didn't get home until 1 am; my luggage has yet to arrive. There was just too much to do. After the funeral Saturday afternoon, there was paperwork at the funeral home and dinner with Judy's friends. Yesterday morning my cousin Jay and his wife Janie and I spent a few hours at the house looking for her military discharge papers and sorting out the mail so the unpaid bills could be sent to the lawyer.

It was chaotic -- generations of family have lived in that house, and the knickknacks and papers and photos had settled in layers no archaeologist could unravel. There were letters my father wrote home to my grandmother from boot camp, pictures of me as a baby I'd never seen, thousands of old pictures of grandparents and aunts and uncles, mostly unidentified. There was no time to sort through it. I had to leave for the airport, so I grabbed pictures of Judy as a child I thought her friends would like to have, the bills, and some old letters and photos, and I stopped at the Walmart and bought a duffel bag to put them in, along with the folded flag from the funeral.

I left Graham an hour later than planned so I drove as fast as the speed limit allowed, only pulling over to the shoulder a couple of times so I could eat some sliced turkey I'd grabbed at the Walmart and drink some water. (That's when I took these pictures.)

There was a brief unplanned detour in downtown Fort Worth, but otherwise I made good time. I had just reached the point of starting to feel nervous that I'd missed the exit to head north to the airport, when I noticed a few raindrops on the windshield. I had exactly enough time to say, "Drat!" (or words to that effect) before I saw the exit and at the same instant the heavens opened. I could not see a thing. I could not find the windshield wipers. And I was merging into traffic with crazy Texas drivers, who weren't going to let a little thing like a monsoon keep them from exercising their God-given right to drive 90 miles an hour. Oh, I forgot to mention the hailstones.

After twenty or so minutes of seeing just how white my knuckles could get, I turned in the rental car, and after that it seemed that nothing could faze me. My flight cancelled? Sure. Rebooked on another flight leaving twenty minutes later from a different terminal? No problem. A seatmate with the delusion that each of the five vodka and tonics he consumed increased his charm quotient? Whatever. The precious duffel bag missing? They'll find it.

Sunday bird blogging

Surprisingly, there will be bird blogging.

I had some time to kill yesterday morning. I had to pick up photos at Walmart at 11, and I couldn't stand sitting around the bland Best Western hotel room any more, so I went out for a cup of coffee, and drank it sitting on a park bench. The air was thick and damp, with low gray clouds threatening rain or worse, but I stayed until swarms of black ants converged on my feet and started crawling over my shoes.

A few blocks from the park, I saw a store called the Cherry Street Antique Barn, and I stopped. There wasn't much that interested me -- some nice pieces of furniture, walls of cowboy boots, Texas curios, and a lot of junk. I asked about old pictures and the owner only had one -- she said people come in and buy them by the boxes (undoubtedly so they can be sold for exorbitant prices at flea markets in the Northeast.)

But Susan, the owner, also had this bird, a juvenile mockingbird almost ready for release. She does a lot of bird rehab, and she told me stories about trying to care for injured buzzards and I told her about the Wild Bird Fund and birding in Central Park. Of course she knew about Judy -- everyone in a small town like Graham knows about everyone else -- but mostly we talked about birds and cowboy boots and the morning that had seemed to stretch out almost to infinity earlier was over before I knew it and it was time to go to Walmart.

Graham

The gazebo in the Graham town square.

I'm back in Texas for the funeral, so there will be limited blogging this weekend. I took this picture last month; it's gray and drizzly in Texas today, and my long drive from DFW took place under black clouds and white skies, like a photographic negative of what a sky should be.

Sunday bird blogging

The peculiar profile of an African goose, at Fireman's Park in Graham.

Like most geese I've encountered, this bird was neither quiet nor well-behaved. Not satisfied with terrorizing the other birds in the vicinity, he came after me, squawking threats at high volume. I've been bitten by geese before -- those big beaks bite hard -- so I retreated. Quickly. 

Very quickly.

Urban poetry

I realize that, by some standards, Jacksboro, Texas (population 4511, as of 2010) does not qualify as "urban."

But I pulled over here to take this picture, before turning on to Texas 199 and continuing on my merry way to Fort Worth and DFW and home, because I was charmed by the idea of a drugstore that advertises both a soda fountain and a fax machine -- artifacts of two very different eras.

Also, by the way, Texas Department of Transportation? That road sign there? Great idea. Very handy. You could use a lot more of them.

Sunday bird blogging

I remember when all my bird pictures looked like this (and honestly a lot of them still do). I took this through the windshield of Judy's car, and I didn't have the right lens and the bird refused to look in my direction, but I thought it was a sparrow I'd never seen before so I took the picture anyway.

Fortunately the markings are so distinctive it was easy to identify even without a good closeup. This is a lark sparrow, which is common in Texas year-round but never visits the East Coast at all, so I'm glad I have the picture.

The Square

I like these pictures in an old-style black and white. The square in Graham -- America's largest! -- keeps the old buildings and the original facades and turns them into new businesses.

A slight detour

After driving around the ranch and taking pictures, we were heading back to Graham so I could see the town square (there had been an antique car show around the square the day before, the reason I ended up staying out at the ranch when I couldn't get a hotel room in town until Sunday night.) But we got a little bit lost -- all those dirt roads do look very much alike -- and we ended up taking a long way around to get back to where we'd started.

Which is how I got to take a picture of the very cool shadows on these tanks on one of the ranches we drove by.

More Texas sky

Drought

The Brazos, shallow and muddy after a long terrible drought. The ranch usually offers canoeing, but the river isn't deep enough, so the canoes sit unused on the banks.

We watched the egret on the left wade out into the water without ever getting in much deeper than it is here. I wouldn't think that there's much for it to eat in the river right now.

The place where the road and the sky collide

The road down to the Brazos River from the back gate of the ranch.

Energy

The picture on the left is how I've always thought of Texas energy -- oil, oil, and more oil. But if you click on the picture to the right to enlarge it (this is the view from the restaurant terrace at the ranch) you can see wind turbines on the top of the hill.

I can vouch for the fact that there is an abundance of wind around here. I gave up trying to keep my hair combed two days ago.

Pastoral

There's a riding ring by the stables, but I prefer the horses like this, no saddles, no bridles, strolling through the pasture, munching on some delicious grass. It's almost ridiculously idyllic.

Scaredy cat

This sweet little cat, barely past kittenhood, posed so nicely by the Texas bluebonnets when Judy and I were taking pictures after having brunch at the Wildcatter's restaurant.

It then proceeded to scare the living crap out of us, landing out of nowhere on the hood of the car when we were leaving to take a drive around the ranch. It tried to get into the back seat through the open passenger window, and scratched my neck when I opened the car door to put it outside.

They grow some pretty fierce kitties in Texas.

Sunday bird blogging

There are lots of hawks circling these Texas skies, but that's where they stay, up high, out of camera range.

So here are some more cooperative Texans: three pretty Pekin ducks at Fireman's Park in Graham yesterday.

More roots

Graham is also where Judy's parents met. My grandfather worked for an oil company, and the family lived in Graham for a while before being transferred up to the Panhandle. Kenneth and Loraine were 14 and 13, and their first date, in 1939, was at the movie theatre above.

A few years later, when they married, they lived in the apartment on the right.

Roots

Although my cousin Judy grew up in the Panhandle, in the same town where my grandmother lived when I was growing up, her father's family has a long history in Graham. This boot and saddle repair store on the main street was once her great-grandfather's paint and wallpaper store.

More longhorns