LOOKING BACK AT TEXAS.

We like it here in Port Arthur at the American Legion so much, we stayed an extra day and just lazed around. I’m reading a Mary Higgins Clark mystery and played with picture files most of the day. I have to qualify my book. I enjoyed her early books and then at some point she got sloppy and so formulaic you could guess the ending in the first five chapters. I quit reading her books. Recently, I picked up another, Night Time Is My Time and hey, she has redeemed herself. I get in the mood for mystery and true crime books. But, so far, Ann Rule is the best true crime writer. My recent favorite books? None are genre books. Night Whispers by Judith McNaught, Before Women Had Wings, by Connie May Fowler, Fortune’s Rocks, by Anita Shreve.

Looking back at pictures over the past few weeks, I’ll just post them willy- nilly. But first, let me warn you :


I KNOW YOU wouldn’t.


A beautiful sculpture of a local hero at Rockport.


Jim taking pictures on the streets of Galveston.


Remember the Naked Mermaid store?  Well, they weren’t ALL naked.


I think this mermaid is drunk. I call her the floozie mermaid.


Getting ready for Mardi Gras in Galveston.


Quite a catch. These were caught with a rod and reel, when sport fishing was really a sport. It isn’t against the law here in Texas to pull your pick-up truck next to the river, turn on a big spotlight and shine it into the water, and net the fish up that are attracted to the light. Night fishing or frogging in every state I’ve lived in is not allowed, it puts the critter at such a disadvantage. Can’t call it sportsman-like. It is slaughter.


Another photo of the great Miss Joplin from The Gulf Coast Museum.


And exquisite glass pieces too.


Beautiful, aren’t they?


The way I look at it is this:   I can’t afford beautiful glass like this. But, I can collect pictures of beautiful objects and keep them forever to look at and enjoy again and again.


I have a hard time to fathom the skill and technique it must take to create these pieces. There is a need for those of us who can only appreciate such beauty.


These tiny birds are not magnificent long-billed water birds, but cute little common street birds. I think I must like all birds, even the pesty jays, woodpeckers and crows.


Indelible impressions of the Texas Gulf Coast are the many boats at many marinas. The shimmering shadows in water, the blue, white, and gray colors.  Lovely.


The black gold that put Texas on forefront of the economy.


This is a common practice to honor an artist who has died. Her paint brushes in the back of a turtle sculpture.
So, this is Texas. This morning, the Commander of the American Legion Post we are about to leave, invited us in for omelets with he and his wife and dog. Bar none, The friendliest post we’ve ever been to. What a way to end our stay here. Unforgettable. We will unload in Louisiana by the end of the day. Goodbye Texas, for now.

SPINDLETOP OILFIELD AND BOOM TOWN

Yesterday we visited the preserved buildings of the town known as Gladys where Spindletop, the discovery spot of the first oil well,  in Texas,  is located.

This derrick is a replica. The actual spot where the ground began to shake and, with an ear-splitting roar, the well erupted hurling 4 tons of drilling equipment, shooting mud, rocks and gas into the air on January 10th, 1901, is just outside this square of buildings. The workers fled the scene and cautiously returned only to witness the second eruption that soared 200 feet above the derrick. This very tame and well-preserved town was once a rip-roaring boom town.

It took nine days to cap that original eruption and the word spread quickly. The small town of Gladys, (later Beaumont), went from a population of 9,000 to 50,000 practically overnight. Leases were sold like apples in small plots the size of an oil derrick base as everyone swarmed into Spindletop to get rich. Fraud was rampant and people began referring to Spindletop as Swindletop.
The old pictures tell the tale of what this place was like. The men who came in droves had nowhere to sleep. They rented a barber chair, a table in the bar, a spot on the floor, anyplace to lay their head. Some even paid passage on the night train to Houston just for a place to sleep, then bought passage the next morning to return to Spindletop. Water was scarce and cost $6 a barrel  while oil was selling for 3 cents a barrel.

This is a picture of a fancy barbershop. The barber got rich.

Spindletop oil field had more wells and produced more oil than any other field in the nation, at one time bringing in 800,000 barrels a day. Oil was first discovered in Titusville, Pennsylvania. Oil was used to light kerosene lamps, as lubricants, for varnishes and paints. Those wells were called rock oil and slowly gave up 100 barrels a day. With the oil boom, all transportation, trains, planes and automobiles,  switched to cheap, plentiful oil and made Texas the richest state in the nation for a long time.
The early wildcatters and their families paid a price to live amidst this muck of a town. Drunkenness, violence and rampant speculation was the daily climate. People lived on oily mud filled streets in tents. The air reeked of gas and burning oil. Children came home to those who had "real" houses with their clothes and shoes and hair stinking of oil, fouling everything they chanced to touch. Fire was an ever-present danger.

Workers had to change clothes every day and hope they could get a bath.

Of course, they prospered and it was a common thing for two businesses to share a building, as this doctor's office...
...and this ice cream shop. All of the buildings in the town are open and are furnished with stuff from that era. An interesting visit. It is part of Lamar University Grounds.

The garage held this old tanker truck.

The surveyor's office got electricity at some point, wired on the insides.

There are a lot of interesting signs and artifacts to view here. It was an interesting place to visit. Signs in the bar, No Credit and Don't Spit On The FLoor. Many building touches like this hook to lock the door.

The center has a film and we saw a field trip of kids who got an education about the oil boom from the docent. It was more interesting to us, than them, I could tell. It is safe to say that oil fueled the nation. Spindletop was named that because it was just a little hill with spindly little trees that didn't thrive. Besides the fact there was always this black guck surfacing in puddles. Black gold.

CHANGING GEARS AGAIN.

Arriving in Yuma yesterday was exciting because it’s  the start of a new adventure. We spent a lazy kind of morning, reading and staying warm. The desert gets cold at night and nips in the early morning. The time change was only an hour but I’m disoriented in my second kitchen and it takes a day to change gears.
In the afternoon, it was shorts and T-shirt weather. Jim moved the bikes down, put air in the tires, oiled the chains and painted out the name of my “new” bike. It belonged to my son-in-law and I couldn’t wait to ride it. I did six laps of the park and remembered I shouldn’t over-do things, as is my habit. Decided to cut it short and ride a bit farther each day.
It was like an old friend. I also reminded myself it was in Yuma where  my bike was stolen in 2011.  We affixed a brand new kryptonite lock and cable on it as well.
After dinner we set out for a  walk just in time to see the sun setting behind a  bush.

As we walked the park,  the colors deepen and become more luscious.

We turned a corner. The power poles could not diminish the beauty though I wished they were not there.

I’m back to using a Cannon which I think has truer colors than the Sonys we purchased. So part of this picture scene is a curiosity to see the difference between Jim’s colors and mine. But, HE is the better photographer and takes more time with his shots.

Even with the sun setting, turning East, Pilot Knob was distinctive in the Eastern sky.

We chuckled at the campers boondocking on BLM land just across the fence from the park.  They are parking free while inside the fence it costs $40 a night. Normally we would be boondocking but we got a special deal- free! The fence seems confining in the wide open spaces of the desert.

Near the pool was a lone palm tree saying goodnight to the sun and…

…reflected in the pool.

A candy striped sky just as the sun dipped below the horizon.